Actor, musician and mentor Matariki Whatarau is helping rangatahi turn the stories of their lives into art, as kaupapa Māori creative youth organisation Ngā Rangatahi Toa prepares another generation of young people to take ownership of their voices.
Whatarau is among a group of leading Aotearoa artists working alongside rangatahi through Manawa Ora: Taurite, the organisation’s flagship theatre kaupapa returning to Auckland’s Q Theatre.
But this is not conventional theatre where young performers are handed somebody else’s script.
The stories come from the rangatahi themselves.
Through an intensive creative wānanga, young people draw on their experiences, whakaaro and identities to devise an original production combining music, rap, dance, theatre and spoken word.
THEIR STORIES, THEIR VOICES
Ngā Rangatahi Toa works primarily with young people in Tāmaki Makaurau who have found themselves on the edges of mainstream education or are transitioning into Alternative Education.
Some arrive carrying experiences of trauma, cultural disconnection, learning difficulties or years of feeling unseen within conventional education.
The organisation takes a different approach.
Rather than defining rangatahi by what has gone wrong, its kaupapa uses creativity, wellbeing and kaupapa Māori practice to strengthen identity, confidence, relationships and purpose.
For Whatarau and the other artist mentors, the role is therefore bigger than teaching performance.
It is about creating enough trust for rangatahi to discover that their own experiences have value — and that their stories deserve to be heard.
CREATIVITY AS THE DOORWAY
Ngā Rangatahi Toa describes creativity as its entry point and wellbeing as its foundation.
Its Creative Youth Development model combines hands-on arts education with life skills and youth development, localised through kaupapa Māori values and ways of working.
That cultural foundation is designed to create spaces where rangatahi Māori can be themselves, strengthen their whakapapa connections and develop confidence without leaving their identity at the door.
The organisation works across noho wānanga, in-school programmes, mentoring, employment pathways, whānau support and major creative projects.
Manawa Ora is where much of that mahi eventually reaches the stage.
TEN DAYS TO CREATE SOMETHING POWERFUL
The scale of the challenge facing the rangatahi is considerable.
Manawa Ora: Taurite is devised, rehearsed and staged in just 10 days.
Working alongside Whatarau and artists including Diggy Dupé, Fran Kora, Karlos Saunders Tunks, Brooke and Starce O’Neill, Lionel Wellington and Nikau Hindman, rangatahi develop an entirely original production from their own experiences.
This year’s kaupapa explores taurite — balance.
It looks at the reality that life constantly moves between highs and lows, certainty and uncertainty, independence and needing others.
Instead of presenting balance as some perfect destination, the production explores how people continually recalibrate, care for themselves, support others and find stability while the world around them changes.
For rangatahi navigating education, whānau pressures, identity and the transition into adulthood, those themes carry particular weight.
THE ARTS CAN RECONNECT RANGATAHI
Ngā Rangatahi Toa has been developing this approach for years.
Its origins stretch back to 2009, when educator Sarah Longbottom established the kaupapa after seeing too many young people being pushed towards the margins of mainstream education.
What began as an attempt to give excluded rangatahi access to art rooms, theatres and musical instruments developed into a wider creative youth development model.
Radio Waatea was reporting on Manawa Ora as far back as 2014, when rangatahi who had struggled within the education system took their stories onto the Herald Theatre stage with established actors, musicians and visual artists supporting them.
More than a decade later, the kaupapa continues.
Manawa Ora has moved from the Herald Theatre to Basement Theatre and now Q Theatre, while generations of established artists have worked alongside young people to develop their own performances.
MENTORS, NOT JUST PERFORMERS
That is where experienced artists such as Whatarau become particularly important.
Professional success gives an artist technical knowledge.
Mentoring requires something else.
It means listening, building trust, recognising potential and helping a young person translate an experience they may have struggled to explain into music, movement, theatre or words.
Ngā Rangatahi Toa deliberately pairs rangatahi with actors, musicians, writers and artists, allowing professional creatives to work alongside rather than simply perform for young people.
The result is a different relationship between artist and rangatahi.
The mentor may bring the craft.
The rangatahi brings the story.
IDENTITY CAN BECOME A STRENGTH
For rangatahi Māori, creative expression can also provide a pathway back towards culture and identity.
Ngā Rangatahi Toa incorporates kaupapa Māori values throughout its programmes and uses wānanga, mātauranga Māori and toi Māori to strengthen belonging.
Its programmes have included songwriting, storytelling, haka, mau rākau, taonga puoro, photography, theatre and visual arts.
Its 2026 Matariki exhibition, for example, asked rangatahi to explore intention and consider what they wanted to nurture and carry forward, locating themselves within whānau, hapori and whakapapa.
That philosophy carries through to Manawa Ora.
A young person who may have previously been described through absence, disengagement or difficulty instead becomes a writer, performer, musician, artist and storyteller.
MORE THAN A NIGHT AT THE THEATRE
Ngā Rangatahi Toa says the outcomes it tracks extend well beyond artistic performance.
The organisation reports seeing rangatahi reconnect with school, develop resilience, strengthen confidence and begin creating their own aspirations for the future.
Its wider programme also provides employment pathways and wraparound support for rangatahi and whānau.
That makes Manawa Ora more than an annual show.
The performance is the visible end of a much deeper process involving identity, relationships, learning and confidence.
For Whatarau, the stage becomes another tool for mentorship.
And for the rangatahi standing on it, the experience sends a powerful message.
Their lives are not stories somebody else gets to define. Their experiences have value, their creativity has power, and when rangatahi are given the space to tell their own stories, Aotearoa needs to listen.
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