Chinese students deliver heartfelt "Pōkarekare Ana" welcome during Executive Director visit

Monday, 26 August 2024

Students from the Musical Education Joint Programme between Wintec and Zhengzhou Preschool Education College (ZPEC) in China performed a beautiful welcome waiata for Kieran Hewitson, Wintec | Te Pūkenga Tumu Whenua ā-Rohe 2 | Executive Director, during her recent visit.

Wintec Academic Staff Member from the School of Media Arts, Debbie Nisbet, has been teaching students in Zhengzhou online for the past two years. At the end of May, she had the opportunity to travel to Zhengzhou and teach on campus.

During her visit, her manager, David Sidwell, was scheduled to travel as well. He was invited by the school to give a Masterclass on the Monday, while Debbie was set to teach classes on the Tuesday and Wednesday.

For David’s Masterclass, they wanted to create a practical experience for the students instead of a typical lecture. Since the students are preschool music teachers, they decided to engage them by teaching different classes on how a choir learns a song. This hands-on approach aimed to equip them with skills they could use in their future teaching. They chose to work with an arrangement of "Pōkarekare Ana" and a traditional Chinese song, “Mo Li Hua” (Little Jasmine Flower).

Unfortunately, David fell ill and couldn’t make the trip, so Debbie took over the Masterclass on the Monday. Luckily, one of their former students, Xiyao Chen, who now teaches music at a university in Beijing, joined Debbie in Zhengzhou. Xiyao's assistance in translating made the teaching experience smoother as they worked with the students on the songs.

Wintec Academic Staff Member from the School of Media Arts, Debbie Nisbet, teaching the choir.

Throughout the day, they held several sessions with different groups of students. The first session focused on teaching "Pōkarekare Ana" to the school’s choir, which was particularly exciting because the choir teacher expressed a strong desire for the choir to perform the song in competitions.

“I was quite stunned to see them perform “Pōkarekare Ana” so beautifully in the video, and to see the results of the Masterclass. So, in time we’ll probably teach them other waiata that would be appropriate for them to learn, potentially the Wintec waiata,” Debbie said.

For the other classes that day, many students had never sung in a choir before, making it a new and enjoyable experience for them.

The students felt singing “Pōkarekare Ana” would be a good welcome for Kieran during her visit in June. Kieran said it was a beautiful performance and a lovely surprise as the waiata had strong ties to her Iwi, and had a few variations, but the version they performed was the version that speaks to the Waiapu river, a lovely coincidence.