This video is made with the support of NZ on Air Public Interest Journalism Fund. 

The creative community is broad and diverse, but finding your way into it can be challenging if you're now shown the door. 

While it can feel like you're stumbling in the dark, when the lightbulb suddenly turns on - there's nothing like it.

"A 2.5 generation Chinese New Zealander", Nathan Joe grew up in Christchurch with aspirations of finding his place in the arts which seemed unattainable - "a lonely little secret that I kept to myself" - with Joe crediting a move to Auckland and discovering Asian theatre that "helped shape who I am today."

Since then, Joe's done it his way - and it's worked. A Bruce Mason Playwriting Award winner and a National Slam Poetry champion, he's also held key creative sector positions like the Creative Director of Auckland Pride.

His most recent work is a subject close to his heart - A Short History of Asian New Zealand Theatre debuted at Auckland's Basement Theatre this year, Joe describing it as "a performance lecture meets spin classes" canvassing the last 30 years of Asian NZ theatre history, which is made up of multitudes of communities. 

Discussing that history and how short cultural memories can be, Joe opines "It's so poorly archived, so poorly kept that we as a culture, we as people, we as creatives, often just forget things and think we're starting from scratch.

"I feel so much more connected to it, understanding the little journeys it's been on and understanding basically anything I've undergone as an Asian artist and theatremaker, someone else has also experienced.

"There's a collective shared trauma or experience through what it means to be an artist in this day and age - in this world - as Asian diaspora. Our history is a short one, it's in its infancy and it's still growing."

Joe himself is among the leading lights adding to that.

He described his break-out 2022 show Yellow Peril: Scenarios For An Assimilated Asian - made with an all Asian cast and crew and tackling racism and privilege in New Zealand - as feeling "like stepping onto the moon - one giant step for Asian creatives in Aotearoa and doing it together, it’s really beautiful.”

He details “first and foremost, it’s for people like myself, people who are culturally inbetween, culturally displaced. If you want to get really specific - East Asians who have been raised in New Zealand, in a Western context where their identity, their citizenship and belonging is always contested and always in flux. That inbetweenness is something the play struggles with and wrestles with."

As Asian theatre makers continue to grow in voice and strength, Joe has these words of encouragement. 

"Every act that we make, even if it seems unsuccessful, lonely, derivative or too off-piste actually contributes to the future of Asian theatre or Asian art. Our personal histories are part of these macro, bigger theatre histories because we are artists - we are in the midst of history making as we make the show, as we live our lives. I think that's quite beautiful and exciting."