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It is a great honour to be invited to speak and participate in events throughout New Zealand and the world. In recent times, I have spoken to a wide variety of audiences, Māori and non-Māori, academic and less formal. It is also my great fortune to travel internationally and speak at events overseas as well. I very much enjoy travelling, meeting with people and sharing ideas with humility, humour and adventure.
If you would like to invite me to speak, here are some questions to consider:
Speaking Topics
Topics I like to speak on include the following:
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traditional Māori performing arts including mōteatea and te whare tapere
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the creative potential of mātauranga Māori or traditional Māori knowledge
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indigenous knowledge, including
researching and creating indigenous knowledge
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Worldview, and the link to values and behaviours
Presentation Styles
There are three ways that I deliver presentations and papers. The first is the conventional academic style of speaking in front of an audience where a paper is prepared and spoken to and a PowerPoint presentation is usually employed.
A second way is a more engaging seminar type style where I try to be more interactive with my audiences. I might commence the presentation with some ideas but I like to then engage participants and ask them to offer views, to participate and to interact with me. Here I like to create a more collaborative style of discussion in which a number of voices may be heard.
The third style and the one that attracts me the most is one in which I am able to apply my compositional and musical skills in the presentation. Here I like to experiment with moving images, with music and sometimes even dance. Sometimes I even try and remove myself from the presentation altogether and just let the ideas to be communicated in a more musical and artistic style. My latest presentation entitled 'Creativity is our tradition' was delivered in this way at the recent Māori Innovation Conference which took place at Te Papa, 8-9 February. In this presentation, whilst I did speak through it, a lot of images, video and music was employed.
The Process for developing a presentation
There are a number of things that I need to consider when thinking about doing a presentation. They are as follows:
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the overall goal of the conference/seminar/hui/event
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what are you trying to achieve in having me present?
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what is the topic of my presentation? What are its key messages?
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what should the style of the presentation be? Should a paper be prepared? Will it be formal or informal?
A questionnaire with these questions can be downloaded here. (MS Word doc) |
Speaking at Waikato University during Māori language week, 2006 |