POLYFEST’S ‘GRANDMA’
TUPOU MANAPORI (74) IS KNOWN AS THE ‘GRANDMA’ OF POLYFEST AND HAS BEEN INVOLVED WITH IT FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS
Mama Tupou has been a big part of the festival for 43 years
Back in the Cook Islands, a teacher said to me, ‘You need to go across the ocean to Aotearoa. That’s the land of milk and honey,’ so I came to New Zealand in 1968.
I had worked in education and been a teacher in the Cook Islands, but back home, you couldn’t get School Certificate or University Entrance.
I had to explain to my grandparents, who I was raised by, that I needed to go to university to get some papers. My granddad allowed me to go on the understanding that I would still come home, but when I came to New Zealand, I couldn’t get into university because I had no papers!
Talk about a catch-22! How was I going to fulfil the promise I had made?
One day, I received a telegram from the Minister of Education who had heard about my situation. He knew I worked in education back in the islands and told me I was welcome to retrain at Auckland Teachers’ Training College.
When I finished, I specialised in home economics and then, when I started at Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate in1980, I got involved with Polyfest.
Of course, back then it wasn’t known as Polyfest and it makes me emotional to think about how little we had compared to what it has become now. We had no stage, no competition and we didn’t have much money.
Now, 43 years on, we have four days of festival and many Pacific cultures involved.
For me, the event is about Maori and Pacific students. Very few schools teach the Pacific languages, so this is one way to carry their culture on and that’s very important to me.
It also helps the New Zealand-born Pacific students. We wanted students to mix and mingle with their cousins and neighbours in other parts of Auckland. We have kids here who have never met their relatives, but only live on other sides of Auckland! That’s a big reason why Polyfest was started.
On festival days, you won’t see me. I’m in the engine room at the back, making sure everyone is doing the right thing. My job is called a stage coordinator and the students call me Mama Tupou. My own kids used to say, ‘Why do people call you Mum?’ and I’d say, ‘Well, what does a mum do, Junior? Exactly!’
I tend to disappear and don’t get seen until prizegiving. It’s very, very long hours and a big job. I’m up at 5am every morning during the festival and I’m one of the last to leave.
People don’t understand how much passion and work goes into being a stage coordinator and managing the stages! It’s true, though, the Cook Island stage has always been my calling. I like supervising the kids and making sure everything is
running smoothly. And I’ve always taught kids that when it comes to Polyfest, it’s not about making an enemy with anyone. You have to enjoy it, then deliver.
I don’t like it when people praise me. I’m really shy, which is why I stay behind the scenes and have never performed. My dad was a champion dancer and some people say I’m continuing his legacy by doing this work, even if I’m not dancing.
My heart is with the students, especially the slow learners. They are really good doing things with their culture, and from there, their confidence increases and you see it through their academics. You see them change, year on year.
Let me tell you, I never get tired of Polyfest – I get so excited about it every year! For me, if I can help make a student feel good about their culture, that’s a success.
Some of the kids at practice can’t even dance, but when they get up on that stage, it just makes me feel so good to see them improve. I feel so much pride to see some of them going from nowhere to somewhere.”