APRAP WEB June 2005..

PHOTO: ROBERT CATTO/WWW.CATTO.CO.NZ
Mina Ripia (WAI)
“We originally wanted ‘Rain’, because our group
name is WAI, but Don McGlashan had already chosen
it. I’d never heard of Tuwhare until Charlotte gave
us this opportunity. It was a challenge because it
was in te reo Pakeha and we had to make English
words sound WAI-styley… We spent a lot of time
working on the poem ‘On a theme by Hone Taiapa’,
breaking down each line. I would give my whakaaro
and Maaka would give his interpretation. It’s a carver
asking a poet: “what do you do with your waste
words?” Like the music you don’t use as a musician
– it was related to our journey.”
MINA PERFORMING AT THE TUWHARE LAUNCH
May saw the release of Tuwhare – an album of Hone Tuwhare’s poems
made into songs. Charlotte Yates – who’d done the same thing with James
K Baxter’s poems in 2000 – directed the Tuwhare project for Toi Maori
Aotearoa. For Tuwhare, Charlotte wanted to capture both the diversity in
Tuwhare’s work, and the diversity of sounds in NZ music:
“All the artists involved have a pretty comprehensive recording and live
performance background. I also looked at each artist’s previous work to get
a feel for which type of poem they might select to highlight the breadth of
Hone Tuwhare’s work – first published in 1964, Hone has produced some
14 anthologies. The direction given was for each artist to select their own
poem – there was pretty much a ‘first come first serve’ policy on selection.
Hone was very generous about what we could do, there was a lovely lack of
‘preciousness’ from him. Artists could use extracts or complete texts and
had control over the production of their work with a proviso to liaise with
me before a ‘sign off’.”
Herself a contributor to the album, Charlotte was well aware of the unique
challenges that “musical anthologies” like Tuwhare present: “in these
projects, the words are standing in front of you: that’s a very different place
to starting writing music from… I think the hardest part of this style of project
for people is finding a poem that suits them.”
Tuwhare artists will perform a number of concerts including at the NZ
International Festival of the Arts in March 2006. Check www.charlotteyates.com
for details.
Charlotte Yates
“I chose a poem called ‘Mad’ that I first found in Deep River
Talk, a 1993 anthology. It is a compelling poem about someone
waiting for their lover to arrive, describing the rush of feelings
that that produces and shaking their head at it. I liked the
images, the language and that I would sing it about a woman.
I liked that the poem starts so calmly and ends in a right state,
with a chuckle almost.”
L TO R: CHARLOTTE YATES, WHIRIMAKO BLACK, MINA RIPIA, DEAN HAPETA DISCUSSING
TUWHARE AT PAO!PAO!PAO!
PHOTO: SOUNZ
Dean Hapeta (Te Kupu)
Dean’s choice of poem surprised Charlotte for the completely
opposite reason to Geoff’s choice: it was 2 and half pages
long! Dean was also the only artist who did absolutely
everything on his own. He wrote, played (including the
saxophone), produced and mixed it.
“I first met Hone at the 2003 Wellington International
Poetry Festival and I felt able to do it because I’d met him. I
hadn’t read anything by him before that. I thought I would
do something different, like a love poem, but in the end I
came back to something more onto it for me. ‘Speak to me,
brother’ is talking about war, about Maori, about wanting to
have a deep discussion when discussions don’t usually get
that deep. He was talking about Vietnam, but it’s still the
same situation. I was five when the poem was written, but
it’s still relevant. It fitted with me.”
TE KUPU PERFORMING AT THE TUWHARE LAUNCH
APRAP June 2005
7
PHOTO: ROBERT CATTO/WWW.CATTO.CO.NZ