As part of our Māori Language Week celebrations, we sat down with Grace Newman, our fabulous intern-turned-admin-assistant, who worked tirelessly to caption He Reo Tawhito and Inspiring Journeys Through Music. In her own words, Grace’s journey with Te Reo Māori has “not always been smooth sailing”. Following hours of Reo Māori translations and turning them into captions, Grace has developed a new understanding and appreciation for Te Reo Māori and its place in the Aotearoa music scene. Kia ora Grace.
Mihi / pepeha
I te taha o tōku māmā, nō Airini ahau, nō te wahi Cork
I te taha o tōku pāpā, nō Ngāti Paoa, Te Atiawa me Te Rarawa ngā iwi
Ko au te Kaiāwhina Tari o Toi te Arapūoru SOUNZ
Ko Grace Newman ahau
Grace, tell us a bit about yourself and what you do at SOUNZ?
Kia ora, I’m Grace. I’m a graduate of the University of Waikato with a BMus in flute performance, and I moved to Te Whanganui-ā-Tara from Hamilton in January. I started my journey here at SOUNZ as an Intern through the NZ Music Commission (thanks guys!), and I'm now working as an Administration and Marketing Assistant doing a wide variety of things. From cataloguing the waiata of Māori composers to lending a helping hand with social media, I’ve had a fabulous time immersed in the SOUNZ world. In particular, I spent quite a while recently inputting translated subtitles provided by the wonderful Stephanie Tibble from E Tā Ltd. This was for the He Reo Tawhito Series. I also contributed to draft captions for Inspiring Journeys Through Music. That’s eight 40 to 50 min films, so it was quite a bit of work!
As a workplace that incorporates Reo Māori and tikanga, how has your experience at SOUNZ differed from other places you have worked?
SOUNZ is a workplace that has taken a clear and definite stance of deliberately incorporating Te Reo Māori into the everyday. When I stand making my cup of tea, my eyes always wander to the Reo we have all over the walls. The karakia, blessings for food and the little pamphlets telling you how to order coffee in Te Reo Māori fascinating, (though not my beverage of choice). Every staff meeting we karakia, recite our mihi and sing in Te Reo Māori…which I’ll admit has been quite the challenge for someone who has barely said more than the occasional ‘Kia ora’ up until now!
Actually speaking of mihi, there’s a funny story there. In the interview for the internship position, they kicked things off by each reciting their mihi, which I had never encountered before and felt rather bamboozled by! When it came to my turn I was in a total scramble and mumbled (in English) what little I knew of my heritage. Toni followed up with questions around my willingness to learn more about tikanga and te Ao Māori, and I felt I’d given totally the wrong impression and that I’d probably lost the job! Fast forward to my lovely whakatau, everybody did their mihi and I was left to scramble again! By the time it was my turn to sit down with Toni and figure out my mihi properly, I was so eager to learn, and I really appreciated the time and effort she put into educating me. It was still a challenge memorising and pronouncing it. I feel that since working on the Hōtaka Māori project and subtitles, my pronunciation has improved somewhat, just through extended exposure to the language.
How has working in Hōtaka Māori three series and in particular He Reo Tawhito deepened your understanding and/or appreciation for Te Reo Māori and Te Ao Māori?
Working on the Hōtaka Māori series, He Reo Tawhito in particular has been a deep dive into a whole other world. When you’re watching an interview with someone like Ngahiwi Apanui, who mixes reo so fluently it really puts your brain into a bilingual space, where openness to both languages is the default. And of course there’s the full immersion episodes that exposed my ear to the beautiful sounds of Te Reo Māori spoken by Turuhira and Tamati, people who grew up without English in their ears.
Is there a particular moment(s) in any of the He Reo Tawhito interviews or Puoro ki te Ao, Inspiring Journeys Through Music, that has really stuck with you?
When the amazing Pere told the incredible story of how they were trying to get airplay for her hit Waiata. She was told that it wasn’t appropriate because it was in Te Reo Māori, while Despacito was No.1 on the charts! That really stuck with me as such a clear example of the way that Te Reo Māori has been terribly disrespected here in New Zealand, the very place where it should be lifted up the most!
The clear standout from He Reo Tawhito was the whole discussion around cultural appropriation vs appreciation, I really felt Ngahiwi had such words of wisdom on these hot-button cultural topics. One example was his take on the Lorde album, and how he felt that she did it for love, not for the money. I felt this was a really valuable perspective and one I’ll be chewing on for a while.
Who else would you encourage to watch the captioned re-release of He Reo Tawhito and why?
Anyone who wants to increase their cultural competency around Te Ao Māori should definitely watch/listen to He Reo Tawhito…as well as anyone who just has an inquiring mind and wants to learn new and fascinating things about the world around them! With this subtitling work done it’s now accessible to people like myself who have always wanted to engage but felt generally bamboozled and very self-conscious. Watching the English captioned He Reo Tawhito is a beginner friendly entry point to some of Te Ao Māori, plus you’ll learn interesting things about a beautiful, ancient art form!