When Ngoi Pewhairangi and Maui Dalvanius Prime collaborated on their
smash award-winning composition (Poi-E) they created a cult classic.
Little did they realise the song was to become the anthem of a new
generation.
"Poi-E: The Music Video"
In 1984 the totally Maori language record Poi-E topped the
New Zealand Pop charts for four consecutive weeks and was that year's
biggest selling single outselling all international recording artists.
Twirling Poi from "Poi-E: The Musical"
The whole Poi-E concept was born in 1982 after linguist Ngoi Pewhairangi
asked musician Maui Dalvanius Prime how he would teach the younger
generation to be proud of being Maori and Kiwi.
I told her by giving
them their language and culture through the medium they were comfortable
with. She asked me to be more specific.
I told her of my personal life
experience of growing up in an environment void of any indigenous heroes
or icons Maori and Kiwi.
I then asked her who her favourite singer was. She replied, Perry Como
and Frank Sinatra.
I confessed I was a Motown / Beatles / Rolling stones
fanatic and grew up in a household of music by Elvis and posters of
James Dean.
I then asked her, what did all these singers and stars have in common?
For me, their entire persona - fact and fiction - was a perfectly
managed marketing exercise. We designed Poi-E using that strategy. Apart
from a calculated urban consumer-oriented publicity campaign, Poi-E's
strength was it's rural roots, the promotion of Te Reo Maori, the Maori
language and Kiwi culture. I then stated, long after her and I have left
our earthly bodies, the language - via our anthem - will live on from
generation to generation.
"Poi-E: The Musical"
Pewhairangi was a fundamentalist at heart, recalled Dalvanius in a
recent radio talk-back show on the life of his mentor. I gave her a ten
year plan, but her untimely death one year after our song reached number
one left me creatively exhausted, abandoned and inadequate.
We had commenced writing the script of Poi E the musical; and the
children's animated characters who also featured in the musical, three
months after we had finished writing "Poi E" the song. The original
animated cover artwork to the musical soundtrack was also a
Pewhairangi/Dalvanius collaboration, borrowing heavily on Prime's
Ngarauru tribal roots.
"One of my greatest influences in teaching me my Ngarauru heritage was
my late cousin Ruka Broughton," Prime says.
I discussed incorporating Ngarauru tribal icons into the musical and
the animated series influenced by Broughton's Victoria University thesis
"Ngarauru" as my reference.
Carmen the Drag Queen from "Poi-E: The Musical"
Now that the musical has been staged the
animated feature, after ten years of development, is also a reality.
Prime confesses to returning from self-imposed creative exile following
personal tragedy which has dominated his life for the last three years.
"Two of my brothers, founding members of the Patea Maori Club, passed
away in 1995. Their absence has left a void within our club ranks".
The late Sam Prime, my brother, from "Poi-E: The Music Video"
I undertook to complete the story Ngoi and I had started. At the time of his
death, Haami, Dalvanius' elder brother, was editing the working script.
An
attempt to revive the animated book was abandoned in 1990 when the
creator of the original artwork Hohepa Wylie relocated to live in
Australia because of work commitments.
In early 1996 Prime met two
computer wizkids whom he confesses turned his life around - Lucas Young
and Daniel Crothers became Dalvanius' computer tutors, and Prime states
"Their genius has helped bring Poi E, the myths and legends to the
screen and to a new audience"
Like the song, and the musical, the rest
is New Zealand cultural history.