Anita Dualne
Singer, composer and founder of the internationally acclaimed group Zap Mama, Anita Daulne shares her unique vocal workshops at Kura Waka.
These gatherings are an invitation to go beyond singing as technique and reconnect with the voice as something natural, playful and deeply human.
Through rhythm, movement and polyphonic singing, Anita opens a vibrant space where voice and body meet.
Polyphonic Singing Workshops
Anita’s vocal approach is rooted in polyphony, rhythm and voice blending inspired by African and world traditions, including Pygmy, Maasai, Zulu and Babudu singing.
Through vocal games, movement and polyrhythmic exercises, participants explore harmony, expression and the richness of the human voice.
The workshops support:
- vocal freedom
- creativity and expression
- rhythm and coordination
- connection through singing
- rediscovering your natural voice
No musical background is needed.
Only a willingness to explore, listen and sing together.
As the Zimbabwe proverb says:
“If you know march you can dance, if you can talk you can sing.”
Ayi Solomon
Ayi Solomon works with rhythm, sound and movement as a way to bring people back into their natural flow.
His workshops are grounded, energetic and alive — centred around drumming, voice and the simple act of making rhythm together.
No performance. No pressure. Just rhythm, breath and presence.
Rhythm • Sound • Movement
In Ayi’s sessions, rhythm is not something you learn — it is something you embody.
Through drums, body percussion, voice and movement, the group slowly tunes into a shared pulse.
Hands on drums. Feet on the ground. Breath finding its own pace.
The room shifts as sound begins to move through it — steady, playful, sometimes powerful, sometimes soft.
You may explore:
- drumming and rhythm patterns
- body percussion
- vocal expression
- movement through rhythm
- group listening and timing
- free rhythmic exploration
Back to natural rhythm
These sessions are not about being musical.
They are about feeling rhythm in the body — and letting it move you without overthinking.
Tension can soften. Energy starts to circulate. The body becomes lighter, more awake.
People often leave with a sense of grounding, clarity and vitality — not because something was added, but because something was released.
Atarangi Muru
My name is Atarangi Muru and I am a Maori Healer. My name translates as Ata (dawn) Rangi (light).
My passion for the Maori healing arts was first ignited by my elders. Today I help people return to the dawning light that is at the core of their cells and reignite the memory of wellness and joy.
My healing training started at an early age as it did for many others in those times. Being taught at the knees of my many Kuia (Elder women) and Koroua (Elder men), is the traditional method. Today I pass these healing arts forward to my children, my grandchildren and my extended family both biological and spiritual.
Cocha Garcia Allen
Concha was trained by Guadalupe de la Cruz Rios, a renowned Huichol medicine woman, and her three great-aunts, to be of service and offer ceremony, prayer, and healing. She offers ancient blessings and prayers, Somatic Experiencing, Swedish Massage, Stone Massage, and Thai Massage.
“I help your body unfold within a sacred container, integrating the session with massage, prayer, and ritual to create a truly unique experience.”
Curandera
Ancient sounds, ancient memories, ancient scents envelop your body in gentle herbal smoke to open your heart. Feel fresh herbal plants, grown in my garden, caress your body while you are blessed in an ancient Indian language. Be massaged in a sacred manner with scented rose water, rosemary, basil, or other spirit waters to allow the light and energy to flood your whole being, clarify your visions, and allow your own well of ancient wisdom and knowledge to emerge.
“I help your body unfold within a sacred container, integrating the session with massage, prayer, and ritual to create a truly unique experience.”
“So enter the cave of introspection in the direction of the West and let your body decompress. Let go of time and follow your body’s senses. Enter the cave of the South, where your magical and innocent childhood lives, allowing your body’s ancient instinctual language to emerge and creating a safe release of all that is ingrained deep within your cells.
Go to the North, where your own elder wisdom resides, and offer to the elders’ circle while receiving acknowledgement, confirmation, and guidance.
Go to the East, the place of vision, clarity, and power. Clarify your visions and receive the strength to know you can accomplish what you want and need.”
Somatic Experiencing
Somatic Experiencing is a short-term naturalistic approach to healing trauma. The process is based on the study of wild prey animals, which are rarely traumatized despite being regularly threatened. Unlike prey animals, human beings, with our rational brains (neo-cortex), override or inhibit the natural instinct to discharge trauma. The result is that trauma remains locked in our muscles, bones, and nervous system.
This can cause extreme experiences such as fear, anxiety, rage, helplessness, and depression. In addition, it can result in a number of felt-sense (somatic) experiences such as numbness, pain throughout the body, tight muscles, dizziness, vision changes, loss of appetite, diarrhea, and insomnia, to name just a few.
Using the model of an animal’s ability to discharge trauma, we create a safe circle through prayer, smudging, sacred song, and silence, where you can let go and take the time to truly feel the places within your body that allow you to feel safe, happy, energized, and alive.
Then we gently and very slowly approach the unsafe and painful places through a system developed by Somatic Experiencing — never jumping directly into the well of trauma, but carefully working around its edges so you can return to your established resources, supporting the body’s own innate process of transforming the nervous system.
Aztec Dance
I am the leader of a traditional ceremonial Aztec/Mexican dance circle. We dance to fulfill prophecies passed down by our ancestors. The dance opens your heart and lifts your spirit. It is the Flower and Song of my people.
Each dance represents the spirits of our land — the wind, the rain, the earth, planting, and hunting. Danza Azteca is a living, evolving cultural tradition filled with the artistic and spiritual traditions of the pre-Columbian Indigenous nations of Mexico and their descendants.
It is a form of prayer: individual, yet communal. It is a way of life — all-encompassing. It is a way of honouring the ancestors and communicating with future generations yet unborn. It is not simply a modern folk dance tradition. In reality, La Danza Azteca is closer to a church service than a ballet performance.
Danza Azteca is a form of communication. It is a rich blend of music, choreography, poetry, theatre, and, most importantly, deeply held spiritual faith.
La Danza Azteca is the culmination of thousands of years of cultural tradition within the valleys and forests of Mexico. Danza Azteca is kinetic prayer. Using brilliant colours in their uniforms, headdresses, and musical instruments, Azteca dancers communicate across generations, sacrificing their bodies, economic opportunities, and even limited socio-political power to carry on a tradition entrusted to them.
Mixing pre-Columbian spirituality with Spanish folk Catholicism and, to a lesser extent, African animism, dancers within the Azteca tradition redefine modern Native American tradition. Using intricate dance steps, turns, and jumps, the dancers evoke a kinetic prayer.
Drums, seed-pod rattles, flutes, mandolins, and guitars unite to create a mind-expanding experience that reflects the cultural heritage of modern Mexico and Aztlan. Each dancer, according to their age, agility, and physical stamina, moves in cohesive unity to create prayer: kinetic, powerful, and emotional.
The prayer is carried within the dancer’s heart and beyond the dancer’s conscious mind.
The Azteca dance tradition is the culmination of thousands of years of cultural wars, conquests, and survival. Perhaps this is its greatest legacy: through the dance steps, drumbeats, and ceremonies, the memory of ancient peoples survives into the twenty-first century.
Through this tradition, the largest Indigenous nations of the Americas — the Mexican and Chicano nations — continue to find renewed spiritual, cultural, political, and economic power.
Hato
“Ko Maungapōhatu te Maunga — Maungapōhatu is my mountain.
Ko Tauranga te Awa — Tauranga is my river.
Ko Ngāti Rere me Tamakaimoana ngā Hapū — Ngāti Rere and Tamakaimoana are my hapū (sub-tribes).
Ko Tanatana te Marae Matua — Tanatana is my ancestral marae.
Ko Te Urewera te Kāinga Tūturu — Te Urewera is my ancestral homeland.
Ko Aotearoa te Kāinga Tupu — Aotearoa, New Zealand, is the land where I was raised.
Ko Tūhoe te Iwi — Tūhoe is my tribe.
Ko Hato ahau — I am Hato.
He tamaiti ahau nō te kohu — I am a child of the mist.”
Whaea Hato carries the ancestral wisdom of Tūhoe, the people of Te Urewera in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
Throughout her life she has travelled across many Pacific Islands, both sharing and gathering cultural knowledge with her Pacific relatives. These journeys enriched her understanding of Mātauranga Māori and strengthened her role as a keeper of ancestral teachings.
As a teacher and cultural advisor within her Kōhanga Reo (language nest), Whaea Hato shared the wisdom lovingly passed down through her family. Being the youngest child, she was immersed in these teachings from an early age, growing up surrounded by the stories, values, language and traditions of her people.
Much of her life’s work has been devoted to preserving and passing on the beauty and depth of Māori culture, tikanga, language and traditional values. As her own children grew, so too did her connection to the teachings of her ancestors and the responsibility to carry them forward.
Today, Whaea Hato works as a spiritual counsellor, trainer and cultural advisor within Indigenous family and tribal services. Her work has taken her throughout Aotearoa and around the world, supporting communities through cultural education, ancestral wisdom and Indigenous ways of knowing.
Together with her older sister, Taiha-Moetu, she continues to travel internationally, sharing the teachings, stories and wisdom entrusted to them by their elders.
Their work is rooted in service, remembrance and a deep commitment to keeping the old ways alive for future generations.
Helmy Helmink
After completing my training at the School for Rebalancing and Body Awareness, followed by advanced studies in CranioSacral Therapy, I began offering individual Rebalancing sessions in 2004.
Rebalancing is more than massage. It is a body-oriented approach that works in the here and now through touch, awareness, self-inquiry and conversation.
By slowing down and listening to the body, space begins to open. Space for relaxation, insight and a deeper connection with yourself.
Sessions may support physical complaints, emotional wellbeing or personal development. Often they become a journey of discovery — exploring how to live with greater ease, awareness and freedom.
Returning to Your Source
Are you curious about yourself?
Through loving attention and increased body awareness, you are invited to reconnect with your own source.
As a new balance develops, many people experience a renewed sense of vitality, presence and trust in themselves.
Learning to meet life from this place can bring greater resilience, independence and wellbeing in everyday life.
A Life of Meeting People
Meeting people has been a guiding thread throughout my life.
After twenty years working as a nurse, I spent several years as a visual artist creating physical theatre. In both worlds, the same qualities remained central: encounter, curiosity and attention for the individual.
The deep human connection that takes place within Rebalancing feels like a natural continuation of that path.
For me, Rebalancing is a dynamic and playful way of cultivating awareness, relaxation and creativity through the wisdom of the body.
You are always welcome.
— Helmy Helmink
Jari Lappi
Jari has been walking a spiritual path since 2006, learning from various teachers, traditions and direct experiences along the way.
He is a certified Kundalini Yoga and Meditation Teacher and has been influenced by the teachings of Krishnamurti, Eckhart Tolle, as well as Indigenous traditions including the Huichol and Shipibo lineages.
His work with breath and Kundalini Yoga deepened through time spent with yogis in India near Rishikesh. He also studied breathing techniques alongside Wim Hof and continues to explore the transformative relationship between breath, cold and consciousness.
Born in Finland, Jari’s connection with the cold comes from lived experience. He regularly trains in the waters of Lapland, beyond the Arctic Circle, where nature itself becomes the teacher.
Breath • Cold • Life Force
“We connect to the life force through the breath and cleanse the body and mind through the cold.”
For Jari, the breath is one of the most direct gateways to presence, vitality and inner strength.
His sessions invite participants to reconnect with the natural intelligence of the body through conscious breathing, meditation and, where appropriate, cold exposure in safe and guided conditions.
Working with breath and cold can support:
- vitality and energy
- mental clarity
- resilience and focus
- nervous system regulation
- connection with nature and the elements
The work is simple, direct and grounded in experience.
By learning to work with these powerful forces of nature, we discover that much of what we seek already lives within us.
Namaste.
Lotte Willemsma
For Lotte, movement is a way of listening.
A way to express what lives within, to connect with herself and to meet others beyond words.
This deep connection to dance led her to study at the Dance Academy and later specialise in Dance and Movement Therapy. Over the years, she has continued to explore a wide range of movement practices, workshops and embodied approaches, each adding new layers to her work.
Lotte brings a natural combination of joy, vitality and grounded presence.
Her sessions invite people to move freely, explore their own expression and reconnect with the wisdom of the body. With warmth and curiosity, she creates spaces where movement becomes a pathway to awareness, creativity and authentic connection.
Whether through dance, somatic exploration or playful movement, her work encourages people to come home to themselves — one step, breath and movement at a time.
Mellisa Ransdorp
For Melissa, movement is a way of exploring both herself and the world around her.
Over the years, she has immersed herself in a wide variety of dance styles, movement practices, yoga traditions and meditation techniques. Through this journey, she has developed a deep curiosity for the relationship between body, breath and awareness.
In her sessions, movement and breath come together as tools for exploration, presence and self-discovery. With enthusiasm, playfulness and an open heart, Melissa invites people to listen to the language of the body and reconnect with their natural flow.
Her guidance is both light and grounded, creating space to move, feel, explore and deepen the connection with yourself.
Michaela van der Meer
Since 1999, Michaela has walked a path of learning with teachers, elders and Indigenous wisdom keepers from different traditions around the world.
Over the years, many medicine people crossed her path, generously sharing their knowledge, ceremonies and ways of seeing life. These encounters shaped both her personal journey and the foundation of Kura Waka.
Along the way, she made a heartfelt promise to her dear teacher Norma Panduro: to help keep the ceremonies alive for future generations.
Today, Michaela is the founder and guardian of Kura Waka, a place where people gather around healing, ceremony, creativity and community. She organises workshops and retreats with both national and international teachers, while also guiding Sweat Lodge ceremonies, Vision Quests and Traditional Māori Healing trainings and sessions.
For Michaela, the work has never been about collecting teachings, but about living them.
“Nature is my greatest teacher.”
This simple truth continues to guide her life and work.
At Kura Waka she shares the wisdom, friendships and experiences that have been entrusted to her over the years — creating a place where people can gather, learn, heal and remember.
Pepe Mendoza Loli
A native Quechua from the Peruvian Amazon, Pepe Mendoza Loli is a musician, composer, storyteller and teacher of Indigenous ways.
A true musical traveller, Pepe has spent his life sharing the songs, stories and wisdom of his homeland through music. With flutes, drums, rattles and ancestral instruments, he creates colourful soundscapes that celebrate the beauty of nature and our connection to the living world.
For Pepe, music is not separate from life.
“All music is spiritual.”
Through his performances, workshops and ceremonies, he invites people to remember their relationship with the Earth, the elements, the plants and the spirit that lives within all things.
Music as Medicine
Rooted in the traditions of the Peruvian Amazon, Pepe’s music carries the sounds of rivers, forests, birds, flowers and ancestral stories.
He sings of nature, of healing plants, of the wisdom keepers and of the invisible threads that connect us to one another.
Ancient instruments such as the pan flute and arco are woven into his work, carrying melodies that have been shared for generations.
For Pepe, music has the power to nourish, uplift and bring people back into harmony with themselves and the natural world.
A Colourful Celebration of Life
Whether performing solo, with traditional South American ensembles, gypsy bands or world music groups, Pepe bridges cultures, traditions and generations through sound.
His work brings together the ancient and the contemporary, the North and the South, creating a living expression of music as celebration, remembrance and connection.
As Pepe often says:
“Life is colourful. We need art to open the flower so we can see the colours.”
Rimke Pepers
For Rimke, dance is a way home.
A way to return to the body, to reconnect with the heart, and to remember the freedom that lives beneath the noise of everyday life.
After many years of searching, she found herself again on the dance floor through the practice of 5Rhythms. What began as a personal journey grew into a lifelong path of movement, awareness and connection.
Since 2009, Rimke has been dancing the 5Rhythms, and since 2014 she has been sharing this practice with others.
The 5Rhythms offer a living map for exploration — inviting us to move, discover, deepen, play and express what is alive within. Through movement, we learn to listen to the wisdom of the body and find freedom within ourselves.
Long before discovering 5Rhythms, Rimke experienced the healing power of the body through yoga. Yet it was conscious dance that opened a doorway beyond structure, into a space where movement became both meditation and celebration.
Her wish is to share this dance of freedom, presence and connection with all who feel called to step onto the dance floor.
A place where movement becomes medicine, expression becomes prayer, and life itself becomes a dance.
Ruatau Perez
Ruatau Perez has been sharing the sacred healing traditions of Rongoā Māori for more than two decades.
First introduced to Mirimiri by his grandmother as a child, his path deepened through ten years of training under the guidance of Papa Joe, one of Aotearoa’s respected Māori healers. Since the year 2000, Ruatau has facilitated wānanga (teachings) and healing workshops throughout Aotearoa and internationally through Te Maurea.
For Ruatau, healing is not something separate from life. It is a living relationship between people, spirit, nature and ancestry.
“It was an honour to study under Papa while he was alive. Together with my partner Hannah, we continue to be guided by him through wairua — spirit.”
His work is rooted in the ancient Māori understanding of the relationship between Papatūānuku (Earth Mother) and Ranginui (Sky Father), guided by the teachings of the Whare Wānanga, the Atua and the wisdom of the ancestors.
With humility and respect, Ruatau continues to weave these ancestral teachings into the modern world, keeping the traditions alive for future generations.
After settling in Te Waipounamu, Ruatau and his partner Hannah founded Te Arateatea Trust and opened a Whare Hauora (House of Wellbeing) in Ōtautahi, creating a place dedicated to healing, community and cultural wellbeing.
Sacchidanandaprem Acharya Swamin
Sacchidanandaprem Acharya Swamin is a spiritual teacher, mystic and founder of the School of Brahma Vidya Siddhanta and the Sacchidanandaprem Foundation.
Born into a traditional Srivaishnava family in India, he was immersed in spiritual study and service from an early age. His search for truth began as a child and eventually led him away from conventional life toward a path of dedicated spiritual inquiry.
For many years he travelled throughout India, studying with different masters, living as a wandering ascetic and exploring the ancient traditions of the subcontinent. In 2004, after meeting his final guru, a Himalayan sage, his path deepened through a profound experience of inner awakening.
Since then, he has travelled throughout India, Asia and Europe, sharing teachings, lectures, meditation retreats and satsang gatherings.
A Path of Simplicity
At the heart of his teaching is a simple invitation:
To discover the deeper nature of oneself through direct experience.
Drawing from the tradition of Advaita Vedanta, his teachings explore consciousness, inner freedom, peace and the recognition of our essential nature.
His approach is open to people from all backgrounds and is not limited to any particular religion, belief system or tradition.
Alongside his teaching work, he remains dedicated to humanitarian projects supporting food, education, health and environmental initiatives.
Satyadev Barman
When Satyadev was six years old, he learned his first mantra.
His aunt, a devoted worshipper of Kali, chanted it daily in their ancestral home in Kolkata. Hearing it over and over again, the mantra naturally became part of him.
Like many sacred sounds, it stayed with him for life.
Since then, mantra, music and devotion have remained at the heart of his path.
The Power of Mantra
For Satyadev, a mantra is more than sound.
Traditionally, the word mantra can be understood as:
“That which frees the mind from bondage.”
Through repetition, intention and awareness, mantra invites us to slow down, quiet the restless mind and reconnect with a deeper sense of presence.
In the Indian tradition, mantras accompany all aspects of life — from waking, eating and travelling to prayer, celebration and remembrance.
There is a mantra for every moment.
A Living Practice
What inspires Satyadev most is not the quantity of mantras one knows, but the quality with which they are practiced.
A mantra becomes meaningful when it is spoken with sincerity, attention and an open heart.
Through his gatherings, music and teachings, he shares mantras that have accompanied him throughout his life — simple companions that have offered guidance through both joyful and challenging times.
At the heart of the practice lies gratitude.
A remembrance of the beauty of life and a humble acknowledgment of all that supports us each day.
“All these mantras have been my good friends for years, guiding and protecting me through good times and restless times.”
Hari Om Tat Sat
Te Kaha
From the mists of Tūhoe…
He Māngai Pounamu
He who speaks the language of Pounamu — the ancient healing stone of Aotearoa.
Te Kaha is a far-travelled advocate and spokesperson of Ngai Tuuhoe, the first nation people of Aotearoa (New Zealand); representing and sharing some of the ancient knowledge of his people.
For many years he has travelled both nationally and internationally, sharing the wisdom, worldview and ancestral knowledge of his people.
A Story of Reconnection
At the heart of Te Kaha’s teachings is reconnection.
Reconnection to whakapapa — our ancestral roots.
Reconnection to the natural world.
Reconnection to the wisdom that lives within us.
Alongside the teachings of his ancestors, Te Kaha openly shares his own journey of awakening, recovery and transformation. Through his personal story, he offers insight into how reconnecting with whakapapa can become a pathway towards healing, empowerment and freedom.
Living the Teachings
Together with his wife Christina and their children, Te Kaha lives close to the land on a sacred mountain within the traditional homeland of his people, on the north-eastern edge of Te Urewera.
For Te Kaha, these teachings are not concepts to be studied, but a way of life.
Family, whenua (land), ancestors and community remain at the centre of everything he shares.
Through talks, workshops and gatherings, he offers a unique perspective on the Tūhoe Māori worldview, always weaving together ancestral knowledge, lived experience and the stories that have shaped his path.
