Little Seeds for a Better Future
Playfully
Play is a language the whole world understands.
Play connects us across generations, cultures and borders. It is how we share knowledge, express identity, learn from one another and keep traditions alive.
Playfully is the international dimension of our work: a platform for cultural exchange, collaboration, and revitalising traditional games.
Through festivals, conferences, workshops and partnerships, we celebrate the diversity of play traditions and create opportunities for people to learn from one another. We are particularly interested in how traditional games carry cultural knowledge, strengthen belonging, and connect communities with their heritage.
Rooted in Aotearoa New Zealand and connected to a growing international network, Playfully brings together practitioners, educators, artists, researchers and communities who believe that play has an important place in our shared future.
A journey through PLAY
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Play Festival 2023 and 2024: Bringing the world of play to Tāmaki Makaurau
The Play Festival created a space for communities to come together through games, cultural traditions, creative activities and shared experiences. By inviting people to play, make, move and discover, the festival celebrated the diversity of Auckland and the connections that emerge when people share their traditions.
Our partners:
Highlights:
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Tocatì 2025 — Aotearoa New Zealand, Guest of Honour
Sharing the living traditions of Aotearoa with the world
In September 2025, Aotearoa New Zealand was Guest of Honour at Tocatì, the international festival of traditional games in Verona, Italy. This was a significant opportunity to share Māori and Aotearoa traditions with international audiences, contributing to a wider conversation about cultural heritage, identity and the importance of keeping traditional games alive.
Through taonga tākaro, cultural performance, music and storytelling, the Aotearoa contribution offered opportunities for exchange and learning between communities. For Playfully, this experience represents an important step in building international relationships and creating new opportunities for traditional games to be shared, understood and passed on.
Our partners:
Highlights:
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Tatuu Roa — Growing the future of traditional games
Playfully collaborates with Tatuu Roa, alongside Wiremu Sarich and Anna Tripp, in support of the revitalisation, transmission and growth of taonga tākaro and traditional games.
This work recognises that traditional games are more than recreational activities. They can carry knowledge, values, relationships and cultural identity across generations.
By supporting practitioners, sharing experiences and creating opportunities for exchange, we aim to contribute to a future in which traditional games remain active, meaningful and accessible to the generations that follow.
Our approach is grounded in collaboration, respect for cultural knowledge and the understanding that traditions continue to grow through the people who practise, teach and share.
Building connections across cultures
We welcome opportunities to collaborate with:
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Traditional games practitioners and cultural knowledge holders.
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International festivals and cultural organisations.
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Schools, educators and universities.
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Play researchers, advocates and community organisations.
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Partners interested in cultural exchange, Indigenous play and community wellbeing.
Our work can include festival participation, demonstrations, workshops, talks, educational exchanges and collaborative projects.
Let's Collaborate
Are you organising an international festival, developing a traditional games programme, researching play, or interested in a cultural exchange with Aotearoa? We would love to hear from you.