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National | Te Ahikāroa

First reo Māori series for kids

A new reo Māori TV drama for kids is in the making. For the past few weeks, Kura Productions, which is responsible for the popular bilingual drama Te Ahikāroa, has been filming its latest show. Whānau Kūmara is the first reo Māori drama series.

Kararaina Rangihau, one of the cast of Whānau Kūmara told Te Ao Māori News, "The language is spoken by most of those behind the cameras. If they can't speak the language, they support it. It's the language of our production. No matter what side of the camera you're on, it's all done in te reo Māori."

And for Kura Productions, it's more than just using the language, it's what drives the entire production.

“On set, we have a dedicated language consultant. After this, someone else will advise on the language during the edit, so te reo Māori is always at the forefront of everything from start to end,”  producer Te Ataraiti Waretini says.

It's a far cry from four decades ago when te reo Māori was first heard and seen on Te Karere with what began as a meagre few minutes a day.

'Dedicated to te reo'

“At the start, there were only five minutes of the language on TV," Rangihau says. "Now with this drama, this series, it's a Māori story entirely in te reo Māori from the beginning to the end. Everyone here is dedicated to the language."

The new drama is set between urban and rural family life, much like the life of many its target audience and generations of city-living Māori kids. The element of acting in their own language was very much a sweetener for the likes of their lead actress, who has been dedicated to her acting career for the past four years.

“Working on this is easy because it's Māori so it's not hard at all,” Owairea Tawera says.

Although for some, there has been just one small challenge. Actor Kanoa Macfie admits acting isn’t as easy as it looks.

“My lines, they keep changing my lines, and I get frustrated. I have to learn them again, new lines, it's a pain,” Macfie says.

But for the wider world of drama, while Whānau Kūmara will be the first of its kind, Kura Productions is no newbie in making reo Māori programmes.

"Te Ahikāroa perhaps set the scene for this project because we learned from that how to make drama like this," Waretini says. "Now, we've seen a way to make a kids' drama in te reo Māori for our kids, because at the moment we're only seeing ones in English and our children don't see themselves, their worlds, their language reflected in that, especially in drama,"

An exciting first for the world of drama but hopefully not the last. Whānau Kūmara will hit the airwaves later this year.