NIKITA 雅涵
Nikita 雅涵 (Ya-Han) Tu-Bryant is a Taiwan-born Aotearoa Artist who has been working as a multidisciplinary artist for over 10 years. She has spent the last decade flowing between acting roles and music, poetry and visual arts, making work and serving her communities with vision, intelligence and strength.
Through her roles as a performing musician, a film/theatre actor and director, visual artist, teacher, band manager and producer, she has collaborated with artists from all over the world. Recently, with her Pōneke based band •KITA• she has performed in WOMAD, Splore and completed a New Zealand wide tour with their third EP release, ‘Love Lives Here’. Tu-Bryant released her first release as a solo artist since 2016, having been awarded a NZ ON AIR grant for her bilingual single ‘Chasing Summer’, a collaboration with producer ‘An Ogre’.
Tu-Bryant is currently finishing the most ambitious work of her career to date, a 4-part film titled LOVE LIVES HERE, inspired by the band’s latest EP. This project is intended to be finished by 2025 to be toured at Film, Art and Music Festivals.
Get in touch to collaborate.
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Nikita has collaborated with artists from all over the world, from non-english speakers in Japan, to her apprenticeship in New York with Chinese Theatreworks, as well as her time puppeteering and playing music in Vermont at Bread & Puppet Theatre.
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Nikita has just completed a nationwide tour with her Pōneke based trio •KITA• (Tu-Bryant, Ed Zuccollo, Rick Cranson) touring their 3rd release Love Lives Here EP produced by Tomasso Colliva (Grammy-award producer).
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Currently working on the most ambitious work of her career to date, the 4-part film titled LOVE LIVES HERE, inspired by her band’s latest EP. Not only is Tu-Bryant the main writer and director for her latest work, she is also the main producer and actor in the film, and the main composer of the sound design.
NEWS
NEWS
Funeral back home sparks “THIS IS ME NOW” release for KITA’s front woman
“THIS IS ME NOW” was a commissioned pop anthem Nikita 雅涵 Tu-Bryant was invited to write for TV show SIK FAN LAH! The epic culinary doco-series spotlighting Kiwi-Asian diaspora stories around Aotearoa through shared love of kai.
“I’ve never really done “straight Pop-Anthem” before and I wouldn’t say it’s my first choice of genre to listen to - but it was fun to lean into it.
Recently returning from my Ama’s funeral in our whenua of Taiwan, I was really feeling back into these lyrics that I had written for this song.
Here is “This is Me Now” a Pop-Anthem for you Pop Lovers and a song for those of you who have immigrated and feel the pangs of straddling two worlds. This song was co-created with my best bud Ed Zuccollo, who many of you know also plays with me in our band KITA, and is an amazing producer in his own right as ZUKE. “
THIS IS ME NOW is about feeling estranged and in some cases irrelevant when returning to a place we once called home. A power pop anthem for all who have immigrated, for the diaspora who feel as though they are straddling two worlds.
THIS IS ME NOW is a reintroduction of oneself to the people who once knew an older version of you, THIS IS ME NOW is a declaration of who you have become.
"...people I don't know in your picture frames that are on show.
Years have gone by and by, yet we both have changed..."
The music video was shot in one of Tu-Bryant’s favourite places in the world, Houghton Bay in Te Whanganui-a-Tara by the creator of SIK FAN LAH! Jack Woon (Award-winning director of LET’S SETTLE THIS), and produced by Jess Wong. The TV show featured some of NZ’s best culinary artists such as Sam Low, Vicki Young aka Vicki Eats, and Evil Twins.
NEWS
NEWS
[Before & After, JOSHUA]
Wednesday, June 11 - Thursday, June 12
"One day, a young girl boarded a flight and unexpectedly collided with a boy with kind eyes." - This is Our Story and Ours alone.
Step into a world where love lingers in melody and memory at The Auckland Civic Theatre Winter Garden.
Nikita 雅涵 Tu-Bryant, the captivating force behind •KITA•, revisits [Before & After, JOSHUA], her soul baring breakup album recorded in the back of a van, born from a love story that unfolded on a flight between Phoenix and Santa Barbara.
First staged in 2016, the award-winning Nikita 雅涵 Tu-Bryant now breathes new life into this deeply personal work, transforming it for the intimate surrounds of the Wintergarden, The Civic.
Joined by Dave Khan (Marlon Williams, The Veils, Reb Fountain) and Arahi Whaanga (Te Tokotoru, Troy Kingi), together they offer a sublime blend of music, poetic storytelling, and raw emotion.
A profoundly moving performance, in the heart of the cabaret.
WORLD OF WEARABLE ARTS
Multi-talented Tu-Bryant, who lives in the capital Wellington’s Newtown, says there is perhaps no better show to incorporate all the mediums she loves telling stories with: acting, music, theatrics, movement.
“My character isn't stagnant ‒ she’s forever shape shifting. So I get to just really play……….I’m stoked. I just want to nail it,” she said in an interview with The Post.
RECENT WORKS
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•KITA•
Having just completed a NZ wide tour with her Pōneke based trio •KITA•, Nikita toured their 3rd release Love Lives Here EP produced by Tomasso Colliva.
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Intuition-led music and creative facilitation sessions with John Landreth; composition and storytelling of one's own story for recovery. Music video and mini-documentary currently in post production.
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Far North / TV Series
Nikita plays the character 'Hui' in Aotearoa’s highly praised TV Series Far North directed by David White, starring Temuera Morrison and Robyn Malcolm.
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Avatar: The Way of Water / Film
Recent screen work includes her appearance as a sub-pilot in James Cameron’s AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER.
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Sik Fan Lah! / TV Series
Nikita was the co-composer for the theme tune of Sik Fan Lah! A culinary adventure across Aotearoa, uncovering stories of modern Kiwi-Chinese life through our universal love for food.
NEW SINGLE - Chasing Summer
What becomes of the brokenhearted, when you’re off chasing Summer?
‘Chasing Summer’ is a first time collaboration between Nikita 雅涵 Tu-Bryant and An Ogre. For Nikita, ‘Chasing Summer’ is the first release under her solo artist name since 2016.
‘My parts in Chasing Summer were written in my van on the long drives in between touring cities. I am often on the road, and people have commented on how boring my road trips must be as I prefer my 3-9 hour stints in silence. That’s often when the ideas come. When you have constant information and sound coming in, it’s hard to hear your own thoughts, or your ideas. Chasing Summer was no exception. I was driving back to Pōneke from Tāmaki Makaurau, when I wrote the melody and lyrics to this song. This love song is inspired by the narrative of changing only the good times.’