Fulbright-mtvU Fellows

Kommikal and Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

This is a bit of an overdue post, but at the end of July I flew to Christchurch, in the South Island of New Zealand, to meet and film one of my participants, Kommikal. I happened to catch him during Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, or Māori Language Week. This annual celebration of the Māori language started in 1975, and each year encompasses events all over New Zealand that support the use of Te Reo Māori. Even mainstream media outlets participate, as statements like “What’s next on TV2” were delivered solely in Māori, and New Zealand-made programming like the daily serial Shortland Street featured Māori language content. It’s an amazing achievement for proponents of the Māori language that the week has grown to such prominence, particularly when some older New Zealand residents can remember a time (the early 1900’s) when the Māori language was banned on playgrounds at schools and corporal punishment could be administered to children who disobeyed.
Below are some clips from Kommikal’s performance at the Māori Film and Music Festival held at the University of Canterbury as part of their week of classes, workshops, and celebrations held in the Māori language.
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Tags: Māori Film and Music Festival, Māori Language Week, University of Canterbury

HANGMAN

I’m nearly finished with the production phase of my documentary film. There have been ups and downs, and documentary film making is definitely a much more challenging undertaking than I ever imagined! However it has been an absolute pleasure working with the stars of my films, the passionate and talented musicians who have agreed to participate and have taken the time and energy to contribute to my project. As I begin editing my film together, I wanted to profile some of these artists here.

Brent Samuel Strathdee is the bass player for the self described “hard edge deep funk” group HANGMAN. I was lucky enough to come upon HANGMAN through a mutual friend who was a teammate of mine in the Auckland 48 Hour Filmmaking Competition. While Brent’s background is both Māori and Scottish, HANGMAN prides itself on being a multicultural group that reflects a universal human experience, rather than targeting an audience of any particular background.

Here are some passages from my enlightening interview with Brent, as well as some photos from the awesome performance that I recorded for my documentary. Enjoy!
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Tags: Auckland 48 Hour Filmmaking Competition, Brent Samuel Strathdee, HANGMAN

Happy New Year!

Thursday kicked off Auckland’s celebration of Matariki, the Māori New Year. Matariki is marked by the appearance of a star cluster in the sky known as Pleiades. It is a time to reflect on the past and plan for the future, and its celebration is closely tied to an appreciation of this land, the arts and especially music.

On Friday night, I attended Native Noise 2009 at Auckland Town Hall (Native Noise may sound familiar, as they also sponsored the Waitangi Day concert I attended back in February). This was an awesome concert featuring DJ Poroufessor, reggae bands Katchafire, Three Houses Down and Cornerstone Roots, and headliner Tiki Taane, who performed with a kapa haka group and an incredible DJ, Charlie B. There was also a respectful playing of Michael Jackson hits between sets, a subtle tribute to the passing of an undeniably significant figure to musicians around the world. Nearly every artist greeted the crowd with a warm “Kia ora, whanau”, and the crowd reacted to each performer with generous applause and support. Although the Matariki celebration extends for nearly a month, in the spirit of a new year’s celebration there was a countdown, followed by shouting, hugs and kisses among concert attendees. While I hoped to show some pictures and video, the concert was considered a “taonga”, or treasure to be shared between the performers and the audience, and cameras and recordings were discouraged.
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Tags: Charlie B, Cornerstone Roots, DJ Poroufessor, Katchafire, Michael Jackson, Native Noise 2009, Salmonella Dub, Three Houses Down, Tiki Tane, Waitangi Day

Super City Hikoi

Yesterday Auckland’s main street, Queen Street, normally a chaotic jam of pedestrians and cars (refer to my photo tour of Auckland) was completely closed for the Super City Hikoi. Hikoi is a Maori term for a protest march. Around 7,000 people marched against a new Super City proposal for the structuring of the Auckland government, which would remove guaranteed Maori seats from the Auckland city council. Marchers of all ages carried signs reading slogans like, “It’s not about race, it’s about representation” and “Not Super without Maori”.



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Tags: Auckland, Herbs, Smashproof, Sons of Zion, Super City Hikoi

Smashproof

If you are in New Zealand right now, you know about Smashproof. Smashproof, and their hit single “Brother”, are EVERYWHERE. It was thrilling to be in New Zealand watching “Brother” break records with its domination of the singles chart. Each week it surpassed another record, and earlier this month after 11 weeks at number one it became the longest running number one single from a local artist ever, tying with Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” for second longest-running number one single from either a local or international artist. For critics of Aotearoa (New Zealand) hip hop who claim that it can not compete with hip hop from the US, the fierce national pride in Smashproof was clear as fans fought to keep “Brother” at number 1, even when an imported single from Eminem threatened to defeat it.
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Tags: Aotearora, New Zealand Music Month, Smashproof, Whitney Houston