Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal (BMus(Hons), MPhil, PhD) is a composer, musician and researcher. As a musician, Charles composes for orchestras and smaller combinations. He also composes and performs mōteatea (chanted song poetry) and popular songs. For example, his work Beijing Mōteatea was performed in Beijing, China in 2009. During his Bachelor of Music with Honours, awarded by Victoria University of Wellington in 1989, he studied composition with David Farquhar, Jack Body and Ross Harris. His thesis for his Master of Philosophy (Māori Studies) at Massey University, was on traditional Māori song poetry of Ngāti Toarangatira and Ngāti Raukawa. His research interests lie in the ways in which indigenous knowledge might find new expressions and applications. This includes the use of indigenous knowledge in theatre and performing arts, and in the creation of knowledge through research.

From late 2009 till early 2014  Charles was Director of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga (NPM), one of New Zealand’s seven Centres of Research Excellence. He is also Professor of Indigenous Development in the Faculty of Arts, The University of Auckland. He leads one of NPM’s major research programmes, Towards the New Whare Tapere, through the theatre and performing arts organisation he founded, Ōrotokare: Art, Story, Motion. This research explores how fragments of traditional knowledge concerning the whare tapere (pre-European ‘houses’ of storytelling, dance, music, games and other entertainments) can be used in a contemporary arts project. His interest in the whare tapere first developed during his Doctor of Philosophy (Film and Theatre) studies, completed in 1998.

Charles has written or edited six books on aspects of mātauranga Māori, the most recent being Te Ngākau: He Wānanga i te Mātauranga (MKTA 2009), a text in Māori about knowledge. Charles is a former Director of Graduate Studies and Research at Te Wānanga o-Raukawa, Ōtaki, where he was also Kaihautū (convenor) of a graduate programme in mātauranga Māori and conducted research into theories of knowledge and worldview. During his time at Te Wānanga-o-Raukawa, he spent time with many elders learning Māori and mātauranga Māori. As a New Zealand Senior Fulbright Scholar and a Winston Churchill Fellow in 2001, Charles conducted research into indigenous worldviews in the United States and Canada. In 2004 he took up a research residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Centre in Bellagio in Italy. Charles was a visiting scholar at the University of London in 2011.

Charles is a member of the Ministry of Science and Innovation’s Science Board. He has previously been chair of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, a member of the Fulbright New Zealand board, a member of the Māori Heritage Council of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, a member of The Oxygen Group and Chair of the Vision Mātauranga Advisory Group (both groups convened by the former Ministry of Research, Science and Technology) and a trustee of SOUNZ New Zealand Music Centre. www.charles-royal.com www.orotokare.org.nz www.maramatanga.ac.nz