Bare Feet With Mickela Mallozzi

Mickela Mallozzi: I'm a dancer and I'm a traveler.

And wherever I go, I experience the world one dance at a time.

I'm Mickela Mallozzi, and this is "Bare Feet."

Announcer: "Bare Feet" is supported in part by... [Singing African chant] [Playing Andean music] Announcer 2: Bloomberg Connects gives you a way to experience the arts from your mobile phone.

You can explore hundreds of cultural organizations from around the world, anytime, anywhere.

Learn more at bloombergconnects.org or wherever you find your apps.

Announcer 3: Taiwan, a gateway to the world.

Crossing the continent.

Together with you.

Blossoming in the sky.

China Airlines from Taiwan.

Announcer 4: Additional funding was provided by Koo and Patricia Yuen through the Yuen Foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

Announcer 5: And by the Ann H. Symington Foundation.

Paora Puru: [Speaking Maori], celebrate Matariki.

"Manawa maiea te putanga o Matariki," celebrate the rising of Matariki.

"Manawa maiea te ariki o te rangi," celebrate the rising of the guardian of the sky.

"Manawa maiea te Matahi o te Tau," celebrate the rising of the new year.

"Whano, whano," unite, unite.

"Haramai te toki ata huakirangi," and bring forth the dawn.

"Haumi-e, Hui-e, Taiki-e," together in solidarity, we are one.

Mickela: [Speaking Maori] Welcome back to Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa, named by the indigenous Maori people as "the place that is desired by many," also known as Auckland, New Zealand.

I'm here to celebrate Matariki, the marking of the new year in the Maori lunar calendar.

Matariki is a star cluster that appears in the early morning sky in New Zealand during the mid-winter months.

Matariki has been celebrated for generations in Maori culture, and it became a national public holiday in Aotearoa in 2022, marking the first indigenous public holiday in New Zealand, a major step in recognizing te ao Maori, or Maori worldview.

Dane Tumahai, my Kaitiaki, or guardian, and his iwi, his tribe, Ngati Whatua Orakei, have taken me right in, teaching me te reo Maori, or the Maori language, showing the beauty in ritual and storytelling, and sharing the power and strength of the haka.

Matariki is a time when whanau, or family, come together to celebrate and reflect upon the past year, give thanks for the present, and look ahead to the future.

I was generously invited by Kiriana Koni, one of our hosts and guides here in Aotearoa, to experience firsthand the traditions of Matariki celebrations with her whanau.

Heta Higgins: Because this is our first time meeting, we Maori people like to do a whakatau nei a tatou.

So, whakatau nei a tatou is just to settle everyone.

[Praying in Maori] Heta: It's a protection, so it joins the spiritual world and our physical world.

[Praying in Maori] Heta: Our stories, our knowledge, our genealogy is captured within waiata.

Mickela: What is waiata?

What is the translation for waiata?

Heta: Oh, sorry, waiata is a song.

Mickela: A song?

Heta: Yeah.

[Singing in Maori] Heta: Matariki is the mother star, and she had kids with Rehua, a cluster of kids.

This particular waiata speaks about the stars of the cluster of Pleiades.

You guys might know it as Pleiades.

In Japan I think they name it Subaru, but we know it as Matariki.

[Singing in Maori] Heta: Each star represents how we know the year ahead, what's it going to be like, you know.

Mickela: Depending on which star is shining the brightest.

Heta: Depending on what star shines the brightest.

[Singing in Maori] Heta: We're going to teach you a song about Matariki.

Do you want me to do a translation first?

Mickela: Yeah, sure.

[Singing in Maori] Heta: So, "Matariki, Matariki, erai" is rise, to rise.

"Te Matahi o te Tau," it is the first month of the Maori year.

[Singing in Maori] Kiriana Koni: Yes.

[Singing in Maori] Heta: [Speaking Maori], it's a gathering of stars.

[Speaking Maori] in the bosom of our Sky Father Ragni nui.

So we've got our Sky Father Ragni nui and our Earth Mother, Papatuanuku.

Mickela: I'm so appreciative of understanding now what all this means.

Not just hearing it, understanding it.

Heta: If you know the translation, you know what you're singing about, you can deliver it a wairua.

You can deliver it spiritually.

Anyone can sing a song, but not everyone can touch people in their soul.

Mickela: Or understand what you're singing.

Understanding is the most important.

Heta: But not necessarily.

Not necessarily understanding the words.

If they don't know the meaning of the lyrics, they'll always remember how you made them feel.

[Singing in Maori] Mickela: What does it mean for you to do this during Matariki?

Kiriana: For me, it's all about being together, being together with your friends, your whanau, sharing time, reflecting on the past, making the most of the present, and then preparing for the future and what that looks like.

Mickela: Yeah.

[Singing in Maori] Mickela: What does it mean for you to sing with your older cousin?

Claire Rondon-Waipouri: It feels great.

I love the opportunities that I get to have with her, the moments that I share with her.

Tyliah Waipouri: I love singing with my whanau, keeps me grounded and at peace.

Just me, doing what I'm best at.

Kapa haka, singing, hakas, yeah.

Mickela: So you both do kapa haka, group haka.

What does that feel like?

Tyliah: [Exhales] Mickela: It's a different... That's a different energy right there.

Tyliah: Powerful.

Mickela: Yeah.

Tyliah: Yeah.

[Speaking in Maori] Pukana!

Mickela: It's gorgeous.

It's gorgeous!

Your face is transformed, the energy transforms, like, in this space.

Pukana is the facial expression done while performing the haka, and it conveys passion and ferocity.

[Laughs] Claire: It was actually good.

Mickela: Was it good?

I'm trying.

[Singing in Maori] Heta: When we do waiata or songs, we give them actions and the wiri that you know about.

So some of us believe wherever there's movement, there's life.

So we like to bring life to our actions.

[Singing in Maori] Heta: We use the waiata as a vessel to pass down to the generations.

It's just one way of instilling all this knowledge.

The children, our grandchildren, they're our chiefs of tomorrow.

[Singing in Maori] Mickela: Yeah!

[Clapping] Kia ora!

Thank you!

Matariki is a time of cultivating crops, and kai, or food, is an important aspect of the holiday.

I'm here at Pourewa, a community vegetable garden, a marakai, to meet with Etienne and Levi, who are the kaitiaki, or the guardians of this garden.

Etienne Neho: This has been part of our iwi land for hundreds of years.

In the last ten years or so, we've redeveloped it into a massive kai garden, or marakai, a place where we grow lots of food using traditional Maori practices.

Mickela: This food is absolutely free to the community, which is unheard of where I live.

Etienne: You know, seeing the aroha, or the love, and seeing the appreciation that we get from other people, for us, that's the priceless part of our mahi, and I guess we've probably got one of the best jobs in the world, eh?

Levi Tamati Watene Makoave: Yeah, definitely.

It's a privilege and an honor working in this space, working with my whanau, like my brother, the bro here.

Etienne: So we've got artichokes and, oh, there we go, some peas.

Mickela: This is a snow pea?

Etienne: Yep, there's a snap pea right there.

Mickela: Oh, right here.

Etienne: There's a couple, yeah.

Mickela: Can I try it?

Etienne: Go for it.

Levi: Definitely.

Mickela: Really?

Etienne: Super sweet too.

Mickela: Just... Oh, wow!

Etienne: Yeah.

Mickela: That's beautiful.

Etienne: So we're looking for big luscious bok choy that have minimal holes in it.

Mickela: Uh-huh.

Etienne: I'd just go for a bit of a twist and a snap.

Yeah, that's a good one.

You got to give it a little snap.

Mickela: [Grunts] Etienne: Beauty.

Mickela: There we go.

Hey!

Etienne: One of the main missions would be kai sovereignty.

Mickela: And kai sovereignty, for those... is food sovereignty, food independence, right?

Etienne: Correct.

We're in the tech age at the moment, but it's important that we're able to live off the land because if everything was to shut down tomorrow, we'd still be eating, we'd be good.

Mickela: Yeah.

Etienne: And that's important to share that skill with others so that they have the same ability as well.

Mickela: It is customary in Maori culture for a guest to give a koha, or a gift to their host, as a symbol of reciprocity and new friendship.

My great-grandparents cultivated olive trees in Italy.

So I've brought our own olive oil from our family's land.

Etienne: Kia ora.

Mickela: Yeah.

Etienne: Thank you.

Mickela: And I picked these olives myself and pressed them.

Etienne: Oh, that's awesome.

Mickela: And I just wanted to say thank you.

Kia ora.

Etienne: Kia ora.

Thank you.

Mickela: Kia ora.

On the same whenua, or land, there also lives a medicine garden filled with plants and herbs that, with proper care, can treat anything from a cold to a stomachache.

Waisharne, the kaitiaki or guardian of the herb garden, takes me through the process of harnessing some of the medicinal properties in these plants.

Waisharne Raynes: So, manuka is good for chest and colds.

Mickela: Okay.

Waisharne: This one here is kia kia, and so she's good for sore tummies.

Mickela: Do you eat that?

Waisharne: Yeah.

You always acknowledge the Kawakawa, she's the shape of a heart.

I'm going to give it to you.

Mickela: I also love that it's all this female energy here.

She, she, she, the moon, she.

Waisharne: They're all shes, I'm sorry.

The only ones that are boys are trees.

Otherwise, the rest are shes.

Mickela: Who taught you this practice?

Waisharne: My twin grandmothers were rongoa practitioners.

They worked with plant medicine.

So I started when I was a little girl and they took me into the bush.

We didn't have gardens like this.

My grandmother, she used to walk me into the bush and tell me about all these medicine plants, really by smell and touch.

Kumerahou is a detoxer.

It's good for your respiratory.

This boy here is called Tanikaha, so his job really is to build the immunity.

Sippy sips.

Sip, sip.

Mickela: [Exhales] This is...I love this.

This is delicious to me.

Waisharne: You can feel the sensation on the back of your tongue.

That is the... That is the Kumerahou leaf working her way down your tonsils.

Mickela: I feel it.

That's why she's going to make me cough, right?

Waisharne: Mm-hmm.

Mickela: She's like, "Get out of there."

Waisharne: It's a little bit more than just a plant, you know.

It's our baby.

It's what's going to ensure that the future for my grandchildren is still here.

So if I'm inserting love to her, this is gonna be carried through my generations of my children and my children's children, and they would become nurtured by this plant one day.

Mickela: And Matariki is a time to look towards that future.

So, to learn more about the future and the next generation of Maori dance and performance, Dane takes me to the Auckland Performing Arts Centre to meet with Kerira Tapene, a contemporary haka theater performer here in Tamaki Makaurau.

Kerira Tapene: So this is a poi.

Mickela: This is a poi, yes.

Kerira: And, traditionally, these were used by men and they were made with flax and muka, which is like a plant here, and basically turned into a poi like this.

And men used to use them to strengthen their wrists.

But over time, because of evolution of cultures of dance and performing arts and women now are considered the masters.

The poi that I will teach you today is influenced by waltz dancing.

So we're going to lift it up like it's floating in the air and go around slowly.

Nice.

And when we do that, we're actually going to point our foot out and go around with it.

Mickela: The difference between traditional poi and what we're doing is that influence of the waltz?

Kerira: Yeah, traditional, it was kind of mostly like, these kind of actions, real straightforward.

Uh, the fact that we're doing it to a song that has a guitar in it and tune, that's already quite contemporary, You're going to hit it.

So... Yeah.

Mickela: Hey.

Hey.

Hey.

Kerira: [Laughs] Hit, twirl, hit.

Hit, twirl, hit.

Keep going.

Mickela: Yeah!

Kerira: Hit, twirl, hit.

Mickela: Wait!

Kerira: Twirl, hit.

Mickela: Yeah!

Kerira: Hit, twirl, hit.

Mickela: Yeah!

Kerira: Hit, twirl, hit.

Yes, it's kind of a hard action.

Mickela: That's a hard one.

Kerira: With haka theatre, our culture, we're quite spiritual people.

And so to perform, we do have to hone into our breath, into our spirit, into our mind, so.

Mickela: It's not just a performance.

Kerira: 100%, we're feeling the spiritual--spirituality, and we're actually exerting it so that when people watch us, they feel it too.

Mickela: What are some things that you hope to contribute to haka theatre?

Kerira: I suppose my contribution to it would be to empower others, especially young Maori, that you can push boundaries, that it's okay to be different, to try something new.

Down.

Mickela: Kia ora!

Kerira: Kia ora!

[Giggles] Kia ora.

Kia ora.

Mickela: Thank you.

Kia ora.

Matariki is not only a time to look towards the future, but to also reflect on the past.

And in Maori culture, sharing the knowledge of the elders from generation to generation is paramount.

So, Dane takes me to his home at Ngati Whatua Orakei to meet his father, Danny Te Puna Tumahai, affectionately known as Uncle Danny.

Uncle Danny and Dane are direct descendants of the Ngati Whatua chief, Apihai Te Kawau, who gifted land to the British in 1840 to establish Auckland City.

Danny Te Puna Tumahai: I was born in a village not far from here, down on Okahu Bay.

I remember we had our gardens, and in front of us we had the sea where we could catch fish.

We had lovely homes down there, you know, they didn't look the best.

Some of the richest people in New Zealand were living up on the higher ground behind us.

And, of course, looking down at our homes, I guess, wasn't the best view for them.

Auckland City Council, they were saying, "How do we get rid of these people down there?"

So this went on for years and years like that, but we hung in there until we couldn't anymore.

Our houses were devastated.

Mickela: Uncle Danny, his family, and the entire community of Ngati Whatua Orakei were forcibly evicted from their homes in Okahu Bay in 1952.

The houses were subsequently burned down, with the removal of homes in anticipation of Queen Elizabeth II's visit to Tamaki Makaurau.

Danny: We owned so much land, and in the end, we became landless.

But we still stayed together, that was the most important thing, we had to stay together.

Mickela: Protests against further land loss for Ngati Whatua Orakei followed for decades after.

It wasn't until 2011 that the deed of settlement was signed in Okahu Bay, which included an apology by the Crown, financial reparations to the community, and an acknowledgement of historical account and of the injustices that took place there.

In your lifetime, you are now living here at the marae, on the land, overseeing, right?

You were saying before these people were looking down upon you, now you are looking over the entire city.

Danny: Yes.

Mickela: This beautiful view of looking onto the land of your ancestors.

Danny: Yes.

Mickela: It's quite powerful.

Danny: That's wonderful, but that's--that's-- that has taken a lot of work, a lot of hard work.

Dane Tumahai: We would use these kites around this time to celebrate and acknowledge Matariki.

Mickela: Matariki is now a national holiday here in Aotearoa.

What does that mean for you?

Danny: It's special for me, Matariki, because we've never had the opportunity to really have a special day for our culture.

Dane: We came from a time of survivalism to now we're in thrivalism.

That's very much around us putting forward what we call mana motuhake, self-determination.

We are determining our own pathway.

Mickela: Make that kite dance, come on!

Dane: Yeah, go for it, folks.

I'm proud of my dad and my uncles who laid that foundation that others are now following.

It's actually becoming normal to be proud to be Maori, and that's a beautiful way forward.

Danny: I think the more we unite with one another, the more we get to know one another, the better we all are going to be.

Mickela: Yeah.

Kia ora!

The time has finally come.

Today is the dawn ceremony, the day that the Matariki star cluster reveals itself at its brightest point to be read for predictions of the new year, including the upcoming harvest, weather, auspicious news, and wishes for the year ahead.

We arrive at Ngati Whatua Orakei at Bastion Point for this early morning ceremony.

It begins with karakia, or incantations, done by the leaders of the iwi or the tribe.

[Chanting in Maori] Mickela: Our friends Etienne and Levi from the community garden have been here since yesterday, cooking food overnight in a traditional Maori hangi, using heated stones in an underground pit.

They uncover the food and the sacred steam that was trapped in the pit cooking the food in the hangi is then released, seen as an embodiment of the connection between humans and the natural elements.

The food is then brought to an altar.

The finest dish is prepared for the interstellar beings of the Matariki star cluster for them to feast on, presented at the top of the altar.

And the rest of the kai, or food, is placed below for all of us to eat together.

[Singing in Maori] Mickela: As part of the Matariki tradition, the names of those who have passed since the last rising of the Matariki star cluster are said out loud.

Shouting their names into the early morning sky releases their souls into the cosmos.

[Speaking in Maori] [Chanting in Maori] [Man speaking] [Speaking in Maori] Mickela: Mmm!

It's amazing.

What does Matariki mean for the both of you?

Woman: It's the time where we plant, where we reflect.

Man: Matariki for me is actually about celebrating the people that have moved on and celebrating their life.

Woman 2: It's important that you saw us all standing in a huddle, and that was so that we can draw from each other's energy.

Our philosophy of ours is: [Speaking Maori] So, my strength is not mine alone, it is the strength of the people.

Yeah.

Mickela: Yeah.

Man: I like that.

Mickela: It's beautiful.

Mickela: [Speaking Maori], Dane.

Dane: [Speaking Maori] And same to you.

I just really want to acknowledge you and them for giving us the privilege and honor to host you.

Um... And, you know, in the spirit of our people, particularly my dad, Uncle Danny.

He's your Uncle Danny too.

Mickela: Yeah.

Dane: Reflecting on loved ones, but being really showing a lot of gratitude for where we are today and being excited about what the future holds for us.

All I can ask is that when your loved ones ask you of your experience here of Aotearoa, I hope you'll tell them that you met some kind people and we've got beautiful landscape, but most of all we're very rich in our culture and that they too will come and connect with us as you've done this time.

So... Mickela: [Speaking Maori] You always make me cry, Dane.

[Giggles] Dane: Yeah, gonna miss you, guys.

Mickela: Celebrating Matariki with my new whanau, my new family here in Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa, has been such an honor and a privilege.

A time of remembrance, of being fully present, and looking towards the promise of the year ahead.

[Speaking Maori] Thank you to everyone here at Ngati Whatua Orakei for sharing with me the most beautiful New Year celebration.

[Speaking Maori] Happy Matariki and Happy New Year.

You can stay connected with us at travelbarefeet.com, where you'll find extra bonus videos, join our "Bare Feet" series conversations through social media, and stay updated with our newsletter.

Family hug, come on, family hug.

[Laughing] We need a family hug.

Dane: Camera, camera's action, camera's action.

Mickela: No, no, we have to be human beings right now.

Woman: Happy New Year.

Announcer: "Bare Feet" is supported in part by... [African chant] [Playing Andean music] [Drums] Announcer 2: Bloomberg Connects gives you a way to experience the arts from your mobile phone.

You can explore hundreds of cultural organizations from around the world, anytime, anywhere.

Learn more at bloombergconnects.org or wherever you find your apps.

Announcer 3: Taiwan, a gateway to the world.

Crossing the continent.

Together with you blossoming in the sky.

China Airlines from Taiwan.

Announcer 4: Additional funding was provided by Koo and Patricia Yuen through the Yuen Foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.

Announcer 5: And by the Ann H. Symington Foundation.

[Baby talk]