The Nambassa Winter Show with Mahana was all about a bunch of aspiring young hippie entertainers who moved into a youth camp in West Auckland, out of which this community of 60 people produced and directed two musical theatrical productions and toured the North Island of New Zealand in a convoy of Mobile homes, buses and vans, performing at major centres and theatres throughout September and October 1978. While initially four main shows were scheduled for this collective theatre company, repeat and spontaneous performances around the nation saw this number of live performances increased to over 10. This theatrical extravaganza was organised by the Nambassa Trust as part of its national promotion of the arts and towards promoting its 1979 three-day music, crafts and Alternative lifestyle festival, which was held in Waihi and attracted 70,000 people.
The Winter Show production had two parts. The Mahana rock opera, a live rock-theatre production made up of both Māori and Pākehā, combining traditional Māori songs and dances with modern rock music, and depicting early white European colonisation of New Zealand and the impact this had on its local indigenous Māori people. The second part was a high-energy theatre-rock production based on the old theme of cooperation versus competition. The "Return of the Ancients" told the story of the battle between "space angels" and "black magicians" for control of the planet earth. This visual creation was made up of actors, dancers and mime artists performing to a background of rock music, extravagant lighting with weird special effects, fire, bizarre costumes and giant masks.
Background
The Nambassa Winter show was coordinated on a voluntary basis by proud young unemployed kiwi hippies against a national backdrop of high unemployment in New Zealand. This era heralded the reformation of many social issues and cultural ideas, with youth (today's baby boomers), encouraging social revolution, while reshaping creativity and artistic direction away from the norm. This period in New Zealand also witnessed many young indigenous Māori activists protesting for land rights and to have past land acquisitions recognised and recompensed. This was the roaring seventies and countercultural idealism was in full swing.
The first 1978 Nambassa festival had been successful and some of the profits from this event were drafted into their Winter Show.
To make this event a reality, the Nambassa core group, who were based in the country villages of Waihi and Waikino at the foot of the ecologically sensitive Coromandel Peninsula, temporarily moved to the city and hired the St John youth camp west of Auckland, from where this production was implemented. Professional and amateur actors, musicians and dancers, choreographers, seamstresses, chiefs, masseurs, prop designers, auto mechanics, various sound and lighting technicians, roadies and administrators (who doubled as actors) assembled at the St Johns camp where, over a period of two months, this production was created and rehearsed. This was a live-in workshop, as most participants in the Winter Show were encouraged to take up temporary residency at the camp; thus the Mother Centre was established. Many participating amateurs later carved out professional careers in the entertainment industry.
Mahana Rock opera
The musical production of The Mahana rock opera was a colourful and perceptive view of early New Zealand life and began with the coming of the Māori in canoes from the South West Pacific, their meeting on the high seas and subsequent voyaging to Aotearoa. It portrayed the arrival of the white man, his politics, his religion, early colonisation and the often negative transformation of the country dear to Māoridom. The storyline and music climaxed as Māori and Pākehā do battle with each other, and continued with the eventual reconciliation of the two races. The rock opera employed many special effects, costumes, and some 20 actors, singers and musicians.
Mahana was formed in 1977 when a group of Māori and Pākehā friends who were mobile-truckers started jamming together. What they shared was a common bond. They were all mobile and lived with their families in a nomadic gypsy lifestyle in handcrafted house trucks and buses. They first came to notoriety when they performed on the Aerial Railway stage at the 1978 Nambassa three-day festival, becoming a huge hit. They called themselves "Mahana" in honour of a friend who loaned them his equipment to perform the 1978 festival. Within 24 hours and by popular acclaim they were headlining on the Nambassa main stage with a 20,000W PA in front of tens of thousands of people.