#notaproduct

Thoughts on a recent journey back into the music 'industry', arts funders and assumptions (6 min. Medium (teremoanarapley)

We are Magic / PART ONE | TWO /

Wowsers, what a crazy couple of months.

After 22+years of not performing at the forefront (I never stopped performing >?https://www.teremoana.com/about?<) thought I would take up an awesome opportunity to test my music at Kia Mau Festival in Wellington last week. I had a three night season at Circa Theatre. Two of three nights were sold out.

‘Cos I have no expectations, I would have performed exactly the same if there were 10 people in the audience, I do not make music for ‘fame’, or money for that matter… I make music because I have to.

Music is how I release my thoughts into the ether as I am a socially introvert frequency bending polymath. Music is an extension of who I am. My music is not a separate product from who I am, my music is me.?#notaproduct

The next performance iteration will be different from the Circa season, because I am a creative, and I can. Each performance at Circa had different kōrero because get this… I talk about what I feel like talking about at the time, ‘cos for 50 minutes, the audience is in my whare, my rules of engagement. Buahahaha…

To deliver #Daughter, over an 8-week period (1344hrs) and work a full time job (400hrs) with my three times been turned down application by our arts funder and then told:

>>This e-mail is to advise that we can’t reconsider your application/project in arts grant 7 as it had been declined in round 5 and the panel did not recommend it for funding, therefore a resubmission is not possible, please view our declined application guidelines for more information <<

and then my response

>>This application is different from the proposal submitted in round five — the name of the project hasn’t changed as that is the name of the album and the overall project.<<

to their final response

>> As the application is in relation to the same project then it may be in your best interest to have the application withdrawn and apply for an entirely different project altogether<<

Just for the record:

- there is no ‘other’ project, this is it, Daughter of a Housegirl, I don’t know why an arts funder thinks they can tell artists what to and not what to focus on to create…weird.

- the sold-out ‘show’ at Circa was what I was applying funding for working towards the release of my debut album at Auckland Arts Festival 2022 as creative research and development, a prototype to see what works for both me and the audience, but also an opportunity to set aside time to mentor emerging creatives in this space, like my youngest son — who btw I also prototyped for learnings, ‘cos I couldn’t afford to hire more crew.

Imagine the rich learnings coming from a crew with a collective knowledge base of over 100+ years between us. Bruh…. no brainer right? Not for all…

I was thinking perhaps usual applicants do not carry 30+ years of working in music, or 25+years in indigenous television-making or 30+ years of event management, or 20+years of international tour management or managing budgets of $2mil+… ‘cos I have.

I am OCD and a creative.

Question: Who are my peers with the capacity and ability to understand or define who a Black Moana Sovereign Storyteller is or does? ‘Cos I coined that term my own black-self… you are welcome.

So as I continued to work my full-time job, I took time off only for the week of the performances to deliver #Daughter, over 944 hours I:

1. Slept <100hrs over 8-weeks

2. Trained everyday with 6–10km walks/jog/run 6–7 days per week — get up at 4am, record, write, jog, then get ready for day-job 8–10hrs, then back to writing, recording, admin, dreaming, designing and creating, sleep between 12–4am then repeat

3. Wrote and recorded vocals to tracks — some 30yrs old, some brand new, ‘cos songs just don’t fall out of the sky onto a stage ay, they deserve and require love and attention.

4. Had the most patient engineer in the universe mix-down seven of the 12 tracks for the performance spending a minimum of 100hrs easy, closer to 200+ hrs actual while I was at work and then listening and giving feedback for each version, his rate ended up being <$15/hour, thank you Jason.

To give context, this was like recording a 7-track EP project, in your spare time… what spare time?!? Ha!

5. Edited my second self-directed music video and single that my youngest shot in lockdown that was supposed to be the next release to give to audience members as a koha for showing love — yes, follow me on whatever platforms our funders need me to have followers on… to qualify as being worthy of funding attention — this is how I started on social media… one of our funders stated that I needed at least 1000 followers…brrrr… have I mentioned I don’t like social media lol.

6. Worked with my guitarist and backing vocalists after their day jobs, usually starting around 7/8pm and running it til 11pm-ish (1am lol).

7. Had two tech-rehearsals with the production team in our lounge, quietly. We never ran the ‘show’ in it’s entirety, the first full run through was with the audience, on opening night.

8. Had my youngest learn new software to run the show the day before opening night. He had never done anything like this in his young life before — he was in charge of what people saw and heard over the three nights — while I called to him in the control booth from stage, ‘what’s the next song baby?’ he is amazing, and by night three, I had an actual set-list and he got over the embarrassment of his mother calling him, ‘baby’ and ‘beautiful’ — two words I use for all my sons, grandchildren, nephews and nieces.

9. Flew to Wellington for a recce six weeks out to properly meet my choreographer (Goddess) who I emailed randomly after finding her on her ‘day-job’ website, met the production team and got a ‘feel’ for the venue. I met with my choreographer once more before the performance, watched a snippet of what she choreographed, and witnessed her and the dancers magic unfurl live onstage with the audience. This is called trust, ay.

10. Sent my audio engineer to Wellington to suss out the theatre and gear two weeks prior to the performance, he couriered his soundsystem from Auckland to Wellington, ‘cos that is how we roll.

11. Designed and delivered all the promotional collateral myself — I am a graphic and website designer.

12. Filmed performance videos of the backing vocals for my backing track songs, some songs that still hadn’t been recorded, but winged it, and it worked lol. I was editing these until 5pm opening night, rehearsed until 7.04pm and started getting ready at 7.11pm for a 7.30pm start… brrrr…

13. Shot images used as song markers for each of the songs, if I felt like talking about them. I was the design architect (images needed to connect to the lighting and overall colour palette) for each of these ‘art’ pieces, my youngest the photographer and Onesian, the graphic artist. There are 12 ‘art’ pieces in the show.

14. The night before opening, my sound engineer and I were mixing down the stems for live performance until 1am. After rehearsing from 9am until 9pm.

15. Ten days before opening night, I slipped and broke my ankle, endured a rotator cuff sprain, whiplash on the left side of my neck, and, back-pain connected to a previous achilles injury I was healing and misdiagnosed — this was the day before the honours list was announced.

I had my foot in a bucket of ice on and off over five days, still worked and carried on creating the ‘listening party’. I take no western medication unless in excruciating pain, I have a high pain tolerance threshold. I massaged my limbs with an anti-inflammatory cream with arnica, took homeopathic arnica and kept positive even though I wanted to scream back at the universe ‘what the actual?!?’ Instead I said, ‘ok…. I will slow down.’

16. Performed three-nights in a moon-boot and a weak left leg that would shake uncontrollably, un-noticed by the audience, and me having internal conversations with my leg lol.

17. Shot and edited T-14, five mini behind-the-scenes insights following the creation process of #Daughter. They are free and available from the link above.

18. Ran and maintained my household, ‘cos I am a Māmā, ay.

19. and finally with no script, a carefully curated creative team, trust, honesty and love, WE delivered?#Daughter.

So not a ‘traditional’ show, but then I never said it was. Assumption is the mother of what? Yeah…

In short: Hey ‘Industry’, your approval is not part of my creation formula. I do not give any power to you, and you would not exist without me, remember that. Love from Me.

I.AM.MUSIC

Be.Present.