ROB THORNE (CENTRE) AND THE NEW ZEALAND STRING QUARTET

ĀteaApril 10, 2018

Rob Thorne is taking traditional Māori instruments into new worlds

Guest writer

ROB THORNE (CENTRE) AND THE NEW ZEALAND STRING QUARTET

Vincent Olsen-Reeder writes about collaborating with experimental Māori musician Rob Thorne and the New Zealand String Quartet, and the push and pull of multicultural exchange and taking traditional forms to new worlds.

Composing music has been a love of mine since I first picked up a guitar at age 10. I’ve always felt an intrinsic connection to the guitar, like it was an extension of my hands. I’m not saying I’ve ever been any good at writing music, just that it felt good to be doing it. I never really performed well, only giving it a nudge in my teens.

When I was 18, a second passion revealed itself to me: te reo Māori. I never grew up with the language so I learnt it at Victoria University, where I now teach and research. As my proficiency grew, I managed to find ways to bring my love for music and te reo Māori together. I’ve quality assured the Māori language content of a song, for example. I’ve co-written on occasion, or let others put music to words I’d written as karakia, not necessarily as song. They’ve all been seriously empowering experiences for me, as well as harrowing ones (I haven’t always done it well, or correctly). Given too that both composing music and learning your heritage language are couched in fine lines of ego balancing and identity crises, they’re as empowering as they are vulnerable. I’m still not sure if the two are best as friends, or strangers.

Both of these passions once again collided when I met Rob Thorne (Ngāti Tumutumu), currently at Victoria University as the Composer-in-Residence 2017-2018 at Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music. In a noisy café we shared kai and kōrero about life, Māoritanga, music and caught each other up on the whereabouts of mutual friends and some of my family Rob knew.

I’m not sure about Rob, but I felt we clicked on a level of understanding about the tightrope on which many contemporary Māori artists, practitioners and educators balance in fret – bridging traditional knowledge with the contemporary. Wanting to both respect the old but allow the new to extend, knowing it might make people unhappy. We’re often afraid to reach out and push our contemporary selves into new worlds of artistry for fear of justly purist repercussions. Remember, purists aren’t always a minority in the Māori world, nor are they old fogeys with chips and shoulders.

In our current decolonisation position, we’re all on the purist spectrum somewhere – if not for respect and awe for our craft then for fear of befuddling or muddying what has been deliberately oppressed to near obliteration. I exist in this world mostly theoretically, as an educator. I think Rob exists here more tangibly, as an artist of an artform we lost almost entirely. Rob, alongside just a few others (such as Richard Nunns and Horomona Horo) possess collectively our entire knowledge of taonga pūoro. A simple act of making a pūtōrino sing expresses more knowledge about ancient Māori understanding than I could ever inhale. They’re special people, to say the least.

When Rob asked me to help him create something, he didn’t tell me what it was for. He couldn’t, due to the confines around the performance. I had a brief of the ‘new world’, but other than that I was pretty much free to explore that world on my own, whatever it was. It didn’t take me as long as some compositions do. It turned out that I really liked the idea of exploring the kind of language we use in Māori to talk about other worlds (such as that of Hinenuitepō), but in a more futuristic space. The Māori world has a strong penchant for remembering and acknowledging the past, much stronger than the Western world which forgives itself more than it should for being forgetful. Perceiving that language as future also led me to thinking what such a world would feel like, and under whose divine domain that might fall. In Māoridom, every domain in our existence is guarded and kept by an Atua. Who’s was this new world to be? Playing God (as composers are allowed to do) I decided this new world was to be that of Rongo, typically cast as the god of peace, but also of healing and of the senses. This world, I decided, was to be one free from the current plights of our time, of which there are many to write about. So too would it be about healing and sensing – after all, that’s what music, and particularly taonga pūoro, is supposed to do.

As I later learnt, the words were used to inform Rob’s performance, titled ‘This New World’, alongside the New Zealand String Quartet (Helene Pohl – first violin, Monique Lapins – second violin, Gillian Ansell – viola, Rolf Gjelsten – cello), as part of the New Zealand Festival 2018. The words pre-empted what proved to be a stunning exchange between Rob and the Quartet, calling on the works of Rob himself, Salina Fisher, Gillian Whitehead and Gareth Farr. At times this exchange was obvious – taonga pūoro and classically Western string instruments calling and responding. At one point I’m sure Pohl (first violin) was imitating the karanga manu Rob had just put down. At other times it was subtler, like when Ansell (viola) substituted strings for striking stone tumutumu. Subtler still was during Whitehead’s Pūhake ki te Rangi, when all four members of the Quartet aspirated careful breath, bowing their instruments at the same time.

Of course, readers well-versed in the world of chamber music will be familiar with the composers and their work. I wasn’t. I encountered them anew. Luckily, in Māori we have a word to use when encountering exchanges like these for the first time, tāutuutu. In one sense it is an acknowledgment of mana and domain (important when establishing new worlds, I imagine). Wāhine are the most powerful exhibitors of tāutuutu, when they karanga on the marae. They announce a new encounter is taking place, and then together they exchange and reveal information about the event. Together their calls dominate the entire ātea and dictate group movement, space and time. That’s what Te Ao Hou The New World was for me.

Talking balance in this way is important. During that rainy Tuesday night in St Mary of the Angels, many voices spoke before an altar of native green. Neither was louder than another nor did one voice dominate the conversation. I wondered what it would be like to share in a world where all of our dialogue is voiced and heard in this way. Something to ask Rongo for I guess, when the sun comes up. Haumi e, hui e, tāiki e!

Read our interview with Rob Thorne and Fis about their album Clear Stones here.

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The Tino Rangatiratanga flag flies alongside the New Zealand national flag on the Auckland Harbour Bridge during Waitangi Day celebrations (photo: Hannah Peters/Getty Images).

ĀteaApril 7, 2018

What the heck is the Crown/Māori Relations portfolio?

Keri Mills

Guest writer

The Tino Rangatiratanga flag flies alongside the New Zealand national flag on the Auckland Harbour Bridge during Waitangi Day celebrations (photo: Hannah Peters/Getty Images).

According to the government, the new Crown/Māori Relations portfolio was introduced (among other things) to improve the way government departments engage with Māori and find new and different opportunities for more active partnership. But what does that actually mean?

Not sure what the new Crown-Māori Relations portfolio is all about? Don’t worry – neither is the minister.

This may well be a good thing. Kelvin Davis has pledged to listen rather than charging ahead with a government-knows-best strategy for “fixing” race relations – a method that hasn’t worked in the past.

The idea for the new portfolio came from the observation that more than two thirds of iwi have completed their journey through the Treaty settlements process, and we are entering into a new phase of race-relations, full of new commitments and high expectations: uncharted territory.

But what might managing the transition to a “post-Treaty-settlement era” actually mean in practice?

The government have posted their initial proposals for the portfolio and are seeking input from the public. There’s a lengthy list of priorities, which can be distilled down to the following:

Strengthening Crown-Māori relationships, including looking for partnership opportunities
Being the ministry that oversees meeting the thousands of commitments made in Treaty settlement deals, and the ministry that addresses contemporary Treaty claims

The Crown-Māori relationship is complicated. It refers to countless interconnections, made up of the attitudes with which government employees and individual Māori regard each other, and the exchanges between them, across the entire country, over 178 years. And the distinction between “the Crown” and “Māori” is also not always clear. Kelvin Davis embodies that fact. He is a Crown minister. And he is Māori, from the Ngāti Manu hapū of Ngāpuhi, among other affiliations.

There are various ways you can look at this kind of group relationship. You can look at its structure. You can look at how power operates within the relationship. You can look at the way people think about each other. And you can look at how people actually interact.

The Crown-Māori relationship has formal structures that support (or obstruct) the relationship. At present they are many and fairly ad-hoc. Each government agency has its own guiding legislation and policy around working with Māori, and at local levels there are various practices and projects, some organised into co-management structures or Memoranda of Understanding. One of the suggestions in the government’s initial proposals for the new ministry is to “develop a new [overarching] relationship framework that will guide ministers and the public sector.” If they go ahead with this it is vital that they keep the framework flexible, and don’t impose unnecessary bureaucratic layers and costs on local efforts to make relationship agreements appropriate to local contexts. Those who research in this area often note the importance of flexibility and an ability to innovate in collaboration.

Power in a relationship is about who makes and influences decisions, how the process works to include or exclude people, and who benefits. It is possible to have a seat on a board, for example, but to constantly be outvoted, meaning that in practice the seat conveys no power. The Crown also needs to make sure it is working with communities, not just individuals. Māori governance is an elephant in this room. Agreements made with the wrong, or too few parties are likely to run into issues, but it is very problematic for the Crown to adjudicate matters of internal Māori governance. What they can do is invest time into getting to know something of the internal politics of communities, to help create fair and functioning relationships.

The attitudes and ideas people hold about each other are also difficult things to shift. The history of the Crown-Māori relationship is fraught, and it would be naive to think that signing a Treaty settlement could wipe the slate clean, and Māori will suddenly turn to the Crown with trust. Trust will be built up over time here, if the Crown behaves with good faith, at great length. It has made around 7000 new promises to iwi during the Treaty settlements process, and it needs to keep them.

Lastly, and most importantly, the individual relationships that collectively make up the “Crown-Māori” relationship need to be supported. How do you support people to have better interactions? The government’s initial proposals suggest, as a priority, “lift[ing] public sector performance to better respond to Māori issues.” Training programmes for government employees could be useful here. The Department of Conservation has run for many years a week-long marae based course called Te Pūkenga Atawhai, which teaches new staff about the Treaty, engaging with iwi authorities, marae protocol, Māori beliefs and values, and some of the traditions of the tāngata whenua group that hosts the course. These sorts of training programmes only work, however, if the staff stay working for the organisation for a long enough time to use their skills. Hiring policies to target staff with a good understanding of Māori culture, and who are likely to stay around for a reasonable length of time, might be a good approach.

I also hope the new ministry will seek to include the wider public in their work. The Treaty was signed between Māori and the Crown, and some make the legitimate argument that Treaty relationships are a contractual matter between those two parties alone, a matter of justice, not of broader reconciliation. But that justice will only ever be carried out by a government voted in by the majority non-Māori population. If tāngata tiriti (those who are here because the Treaty made it possible for them to come in peace) are left out of the Treaty relationship, then the Treaty relationship will not succeed.

If we resource cross cultural relationships in civil society – properly fund marae and schools to build and nurture their relationships for example – so that non-Māori kids grow up understanding Māori culture rather than being afraid of it, then we’ll have all the ingredients here for a sustainable positive change.

He rau ringa e oti ai. This is a job for many hands. I think we can do it.

To have your say on the new portfolio and its priorities, you can go to one of the hui being held across the country between April 7 and May 12, or make your submission online here. The online submissions close on 30 May.

Dr. Keri Mills is a senior researcher at the Policy Observatory, AUT. Her research specialties are in Māori/Pākehā and Māori/government relationships in Aotearoa New Zealand.
@keri_mills

This piece was originally written for Briefing Papers.