Multimedia Moana
The Invercargill-raised musician, documentary maker and presenter is living a life of powerful fluencies, writes Michael Fallow.
They’re starting to call her an icon.
The word’s been showing up in bios and reports about Moana Maniapoto. You have to wonder what the nuns of her childood would have made of that, good Catholic-raised Invercargill-grown girl that she was.
Catholicism tends to be particular about such words.
On the one hand, there’s no denying that she is an internationally acclaimed musician, documentary maker, and now host of Te Ao With Moana, a weekly current affairs show that examines national and international stories through a Ma¯ ori lens.
We might add that she’s a Member of the NZ Order of Merit for services to Ma¯ ori and music, and an Arts Foundation laureate, and . . . nope, still not an icon, she insists.
‘‘Someone must be getting me mixed up with Moana Jackson, who’s very iconic, very clever,’’ she decides.
Since we’ve asked she confirms that no, she hasn’t noticed all that many people falling at her feet and gazing up at her with religious devotion.
As for the nuns, she’s pretty sure that they’d have remembered her simply as a quiet one who did all her homework.
People do at times struggle to remember why she strikes them as a familiar face. She gets asked if she’s Hinewehi Mohi or Annie Crummer. They might be half-remembering her pop-hit remake of Black Pearl ,at the outset of her career with Moana and the Moahunters and then Moana and the Tribe, writing songs ‘‘meaningful for us, reflecting where we come from’’.
Fusions of te reo, haka and danceable hip-hop.
Motivating, challenging, celebratory, songs that have found audiences worldwide. Few New Zealand artists have toured as extensively or intrepidly. We’re talking Borneo, Turkey, Russia, Poland, Scotland, Kanaky, China, Hungary, Italy, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Korea, Taiwan, Norway, Canada and Australia.
Sometimes Moana would arrive wondering how relatable their music would be. Turns out that in this urbanised, industrialised world, songs and messages that evoke a connection with the land, and the past, resonate just fine.
‘‘So those Russians loved hearing us singing about our old people – it reminded them of theirs.’’
Moana’s dad Nepia was part of the exodus of Ma¯ ori from Rotorua to look for work in the ’50s and ’60s, finding southern jobs at the wharf, smelter and meat works. He met her mum Bernadette Honywood down here.
Nepia was forever picking up a guitar, had his own band when he was a wharfie. She grew up hearing him and her uncles sing doo-wop songs. For her part she remembers performing at the Civic Theatre, acting and kapa haka.
She’s well pleased that curriculum changes mean that more local history is now to be taught in schools. Since she’s releasing her sixth album, Ono, it seems timely to ask if she sees scope in this for some parts of local history to be communicated to students in the language in which the history happened – te reo-infused songs?
Here’s where we might note that she also has a law degree, and is working on a second series of her docuseries The Negotiators, delving into what it is like to be a Treaty settlement negotiator.
The uplifts of music are precious, but it’s not the only truly accessible
‘‘Those Russians loved hearing us singing about our old people – it reminded them of theirs.’’