Performing careers

But actually, something I should also mention, a final section is we've highlighted a number of Māori performers. And it's called ngā tangata mīharo. You know, mīharo is amazement, and the amazing people, these people who've had these extraordinary performing careers. So they're also referred to right through the exhibition.

So Alien Weaponry, who are a thrash metal band who sing in Māori, they kind of represent the kind of end point of sort of the incredible things happening in Māori performance now. If we kind of begin with the women with Hine-te-iwaiwa, and the other women were performing haka to make Kae smile in, sort of, ancient times – Alien Weaponry is the other end.

And also acknowledging that they're very young those guys. They're at the beginning of their careers. Johnny Cooper, the Māori cowboy who's donated his collection to the Turnbull and whose talent quests are also mentioned in the exhibition. Tina Cross, who won the Pacific Song Contest with – well, actually Carl Doy won the Pacific Song Contest with a song called 'Nothing but Dreams' in 1979, sung by Tina Cross – but she's gone on to have this incredible career as a performer.

And she has performed at the library. She was at the opening of the exhibition. George Henare, who was in 'Porgy and Bess' was in 'Once Were Warriors'. He's all through this exhibition. Princess Te Rangi Pai, Fanny Rose Howie was her other name – Te Rangi Pai was her stage name – superstar of her day, may not be so well known now as she was in the early 1900s. But we still sing songs that she wrote including ‘Hine e hine’... Moana Maniapoto. A man who performed with Te Rangi Pai, Edward Hatiwiri Pahura Rangiuia, his stage name was Chieftain Rangiuia. So acknowledging that there were early on, not many, but there were some Māori performers who really broke through and had international profiles. He was well known in Australia, Paris, as well as England.

Taiaroa Royal, who has had an extraordinary career in many different dance companies in New Zealand and then founded the Okareka Māori Dance Company. Hannah Tatana, who's now known as Hannah Stappard, so trained with the famous nun teacher at St Mary's in Auckland, Sister Mary Leo. So we've got some photos of her training with Sister Mary Leo taken by Ans Westra, but another Ans Westra photo of Hannah with Kiri Te Kanawa. So they were both training at the same time, and Ans photographed them at the first Māori Festival of the Arts at Ngaruawahia in 1963.

Marlon Williams, another one of the contemporary performers, and then Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, who's had a remarkable career. And she's begun depositing her collection of, starting with her orchestral scores for the arrangements of Māori songs and other songs, other music that she's recorded as a singer.

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