It's important to our programme to honour Māori and other Indigenous approaches to music and healing. Music is such a connecting process, and learning waiata, and hearing others' stories (such as Waireti's with Ihirangaranga) helps us to understand how we can work more respectfully with music and therapeutic approaches in Aotearoa NZ as registered music therapists. Music therapy comes from arts-based, medical and psychodynamic roots; it is important that we embrace other ways of knowing. Hearing the words in te reo, and their meaning today was very revealing.
We spent time today with the language and concepts of Ihirangaranga, and received a kawakawa leaf and the sounds of the special vibrational bowl and singing. We also learnt about our own gifts as musicians and how we might share these with others. We thought about our own Indigeneity.
Thank you for the opportunity to join other te reo learners today. Kia kāha for the project!
Arohanui from New Zealand School of Music - Te Kōkī, Te Herenga Waka, VUW.
(The selfie is our class making poi last week on Zoom and in person - perhaps not the best shot, but everyone was there). Sorry the final image below is upside down, I tried reversing it, but it stayed upside down!)
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