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Ngā Awa Tūpuna: Ancestral Rivers

Photo: John Miles Photography     Te Awa Ngaruroro near Kuripapango  

Wai tawhito, wai āhuruhuru, wai tūroa, wai pure, tō manawa ko tōku manawa e kakapa nei

Ancient water, you shelter, nurture and rejuvenate me, your heart and my heart pulse together as one

This creative educational project was initiated to celebrate ngā awa tūpuna, the many ancestral rivers that flow through our motu, sustaining life and energy wherever they live.

Immersive Sound Installation

The vision for Ngā Awa Tūpuna is create a 25m long sculptural sound installation that embodies the full majesty of our awa, from the source, underground puna and small tributaries among the maunga, to the fertile plains, all the way to the moana. The installation’s music will utilise river recordings and interactive sound and spatial design to create a interactive and immersive experience for participants as they walk through the sculpture.

Waiata specially composed for the piece recall and speak of the awa’s physical and spiritual journey.  An educational programme with waiata and other creative and science-based activities will accompany the work. The plan is to exhibit it in art galleries or other public buildings or spaces, such as wharenui, school halls, and community halls.

Te Awa Ngaruroro

In 2012 I returned to my birthplace, Heretaunga to visit Kohupātiki marae. I was called back to support the papakainga’s kaupapa, the kaitiakitanga of the awa - my father is buried in the urupa. The Ngaruroro used to flow past the marae until it was diverted many decades ago to irrigate the growing horticultural industry. It is now polluted and full of sediment and the pātiki (black flounder) no longer live in this part of the river. The mauri of this awa and many others in the area have been in decay for many decades. It’s time to ask the hard questions and find sustainable solutions that care for and acknowledge the valuable things these awa offer us.

Ko ngā awa te puna o te kaha, te ora, te tuakiri, te wairua, te oranga tonutanga mō ngā iwi e noho ana ki ōna tahatika

Rivers are the source of strength, life, identity, spirit and sustenance for the people who live along its banks.

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Rangimārie

Whatungarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua

When man disappears from sight, the land remains

The creative vision of this piece is both timely and expansive. Rangimārie is set in the future and explores peoples relationship to the whenua (land), wai (water) and te moana (the sea), and considers our role as kaitiakitanga (guardians), the links that bind us to each other, and our past and future.

Materially, this 90-minute long piece of music theatre will run counter to traditional Western music performance norms. Rangimārie will blend new interactive sound technology and contemporary instrumental performance techniques with traditional Māori vocal, instrumental and dramatic performance practices.

Composer and songwriter, Tuirina Wehi and I have been composing music and lyrics for this piece on and off for the past few years. Planning has also begun to workshop and then record the whole piece with Steve Garden at Rattle Records and Joost and Chris at Big Pop Studios, aided by my wonderful colleagues at the University of Auckland, John Coulter and John Kim. The project has significantly expanded from its early beginnings as a short 25-minute work thanks to the excellent support and input from contributors Cameron Rhodes, Waimihi Hotere and Antonio Te Maioha.

Dramatic Setting:

2047. Aotearoa New Zealand. Not heeding the warnings four decades earlier, the human race is running out of time. Most of the Pacific is now all ocean. Great storms beat and batter the remaining land masses. Huge tides sweep inland and destructive storms are commonplace.

Aotearoa is no different. Nature has taken control and will decide our destiny. A date is predicted when it will be safe to return to the where the coast used to be.  As the night falls, on a hill, above the seas reach, two groups of people meet - one Pākehā, one Māori. This place has a strong significance to both groups—their histories are entwined.

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Te Waiora Ohooho: The Sacred Waters Awake

Ngā mihi nui ki tēnei wāhi tapu kei waenganui i te rohe o Mohua, ko te Puna Waiora o Waikoropupu.

Composer, sound and moving image design by Stephen Ralph Matthews. Taonga puoro composed and performed by Richard Nunns.

This art installation is comprised of video footage and audio samples recorded at the Te Puna Waiora o Waikoropupu, the springs situated west of Takaka, Golden Bay, New Zealand along with audio samples of taonga pūoro composed and performed especially for this creative work by Richard Nunns. He mihi mahana ki a koe e hoa mo tōu mahi whakatangitangi.

The creation of this work was supported by ngā tangata whenua o Mohua (Golden Bay). Kia ora mo tōu manaakitanga ki a koutou katoa.

The installation is comprised of three video images  projected on to three perspex screens suspended in space  - the right and left screens are angled slightly so that they subtly envelope the viewer. Sound surrounds the images through the positioning of four channels of audio spread behind the screens. The looped sequence lasts seven minutes. 

Te Waiora Ohooho: The Sacred Waters Awake The two dimensional representation at the top of this post shows the three screen images in a horizontal parallel line. It includes all five sections within the 7 minute looped sequence and then repeats the first section, ie., A, B, C, D, E and then A.

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Rangiawhina, Jameco, Courtney, Tatijana - ngā kōtiro o Parihaka, just before the premiere performance.

Toi tu te kupu

Toi tu te mana

Toi tu te whenua

Witnessing Parihaka was the result of twelve months of consultation, collectivism and collaborationbetween a community, a composer, a poet, and the performers and musicians, bothMāori and Pākehā. This lead to tamariki (children) and pahake (learned elders) travelling from Parihaka to Tāmaki-makau-rau, Aotearoa's largest city to perform with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.

My partner, Kiri Eriwata and I began this journey when we travelled to Parihaka in May 2010. Coming back after so many years absence was a passage of return and renewal; for me to a place that held powerful memories, links to youthful ideals and aspirations, and for Kiri, to the home of her Taranaki tūpuna, a pilgrimage to reconnect with her Taranaki whānau (family). Since this time Kiri and I have experienced firsthand the community's generous acts of reciprocity, their commitment to manaakitanga (hospitality) and their passionate advocacy of the tikanga (principles) of their forebears.  

The settlement of Parihaka stands halfway between the foot of the maunga, Taranaki, and the rugged western cape of the Te-Ika-a-Māui. By the late 1860s it had grown to become a thriving village as Māori from across the region and country travelled there to seek refuge from the strife generated by the land wars that were engulfing the country.  Its two leaders Tohu Kākahi and Te Whiti o Rongomai led a spiritual and political movement that employed the use of passive resistance to oppose the New Zealand government from coercively taking ancestral Māori land.  A full description of the story of Parihaka can be found at Parihaka.com