InMotion Matariki

Overview

InMotion Mataraki is an all wheels, all abilities, all inclusive, illuminated Mataraki parade run by Touch Compass, New Zealand's boundary breaking professional performing arts company which features performers with and without a disability. The company have been behind works such as Undertide!, performed at White Night; Somatechnics, a contemporary dance cyborgean experience, performed as part of Auckland Live; and On Display, an art exhibition where the performers were the sculptures which aimed to comment "on the body as spectacle and society's obsession with body image."

Matariki is the annual Māori New Year festival which celebrates all things celestial. The word literally means 'eyes of god' (mata ariki) or 'little eyes' (mata riki). According to Māori mythology, when Ranginui (god of the sky), and Papatūānuku (mother earth), were separated by their children (who were fairly being sort of being suffocated by their way too intense), Tāwhirimātea (the god of the wind), became so genuinely angry about it that he decided to tear his eyes out and throw them into the sky, where they stuck and became a constellation of stars also known as the Pleiades. Fair enough.

The free parade will begin at Silo Park (Wynyard Quarter) at 5.30pm on Saturday 21 July and amble along to the end of The Cloud. Roll up with your decorated wheels and any infants that might be yours as the event is super family friendly.