Aotearoa members share the performed songs represent three major events in the life of students who come to BYUH
Waipapakura Bailey, co-writer of the songs performed in Culture Night 2023 and New Zealand native, said coming up with a theme was easy but working on the song was the difficult part. The freshman from New Zealand majoring in accounting said, “Māori is [very] figurative.So you got to think creatively.” She added while creating the pieces of music, she had to think in both English and Māori, going back and forth between the two.
Bailey said they used familiar chants from overarching traditions in Māori culture as part of the songs they created, such as “Toia mai te waka,” which means to bring the canoe together. She said, “It was a bit tough, but we had a group with a great set of skills. Everyone had a different set of skills that they could bring to the table. So it made it a lot easier.” Bailey acknowledged the help of fellow Māori students Irene Tawa, Maania Spooner and Bitner Matautia who worked together before practices even started. Bailey described the musical numbers they created to rowing a canoe that takes work to get to a destination.
President of the Aotearoa Club Hinekura Kingi added, “[We are] telling our life story here at BYUH.”
Kingi, a junior from New Zealand majoring in exercise and sport science and co-writer of the songs in Aotearoa’s Culture Night performance, said, “In terms of culture and the music, you have to be fierce. You have to feel it, feel its meaning within yourself and how you can apply it to your life.”
Kingi said the club’s performance represents three major events in the life of students who come to BYU–Hawaii to further their educations.
The meaning behind the songs
The first song in the performance was a description of new students leaving their families and friends and arriving at BYUH, explained Kingi. “We’re coming from home to an unsettling environment, but we’re joining canoe [a team] here, settling here,” said Kingi. She explained a canoe is a metaphor for a team in Polynesian culture, and as different cultures join Aotearoa Club, it is like they are all joining one big canoe. The entrance of the performance showed how students coming here have to find new friends and create a family at work and school, Kingi said.
The second musical number was “The Haka, which shows fierceness [and] how you overcame the challenge to connect, excel and gain the degree that you want,” Kingi said. As a song about taking action, it expressed the feelings of creating a family here with other people from different cultures and being on the same journey together, said Kingi.
The last song talked about going home and serving the mission of the school, which is “Enter to learn, go forth to serve,” said Kingi. “At the end of the day, when our four years here at BYUH [come to an end], you realize you [didn’t get] here alone. You have your teachers, workmates, classmates and new friends you make every semester and how they’ve helped and shaped you,” she said.
Kingi said the music conveys how the family created at BYUH inspires people as they gain knowledge and achieve their goals. Kingi said while working on the original songs for the Aotearoa Club’s Culture Night performance, she was reminded of a Māori proverb: “Ehara taku toa i te toa takitahi, he toa takitini,” which translates into “Teamwork makes the dream work.”