SINGING for Pasifika Voices under the guidance of Dr Igelese Ete, inspired Tupou Bulai Muriwaqa to form her own choir.
Four years ago, the Nakorovou, Dreketi, Rewa, native with maternal links to Ogea in Lau started the ManaVia Group which is made up of youths from her village and a few of her friends.
“My choir group was inspired by Pasifika Voices,” she said.
“I used to sing for Pasifika Voices back in 2010, and have carried on with my singing journey until now.
“And I know Pasifika Voices is no longer around because it was led by Dr Igelese Ete.
“If you hear the songs that we’ve performed, they’re basically just inspired by Pasifika Voices.
“Today is the 4th year of ManaVia, ever since Global Recycling Day started, we started with it so that was when I actually formed ManaVia Group.
“All my members are from my village, there are just few of my friends whom I just picked out from Namosi, Tailevu, but majority of the youths are from Nakorovu, Dreketi in Rewa.
“So some of them are school dropouts, some of them are university students, and what inspires me from Pasifika Voices, I tend to create in my own village — own community.”
The group merged with Pasifika Prima Voce to form PrimanaVia and represented Fiji at the World Choir Games last year.
“PrimanaVia is the two groups between myself and my elder brother Soko Loga.
“So we merged the two groups because we believe that we both have a different taste of music, he has classical and opera.
“And he’s been trained for almost 11 years, and I have the talent of traditional and iTaukei songs so we kind of merged the two groups into PrimanaVia so we have been performing like all over the place.
“These members are from PrimanaVia too.
“We have performed a lot at Government events.”
Muriwaqa said she has faced challenges in bringing young people, especially the school dropouts, to join her group.
“And trying to inspire them that drop-out is not the end of their life, for them to be encouraged about their talent in singing or dancing.
“So the challenges that I face is trying to bring them in, and train them in a particular way so that they be come classy performers.
“And also the challenges I’ve faced is sometimes we get paid, and sometimes we go with free gigs, and it’s not bad to have free gigs but at least we get to showcase our talent in those events.
“Majority of the challenges are linked to finance, we sometimes have to fundraise for our transport.
“But when we get funded by a good company it’s really a good thing for us.
“Since we are all in one place in Rewa, we rehearse from Tuesday to Friday at 2pm, four days a week.”
Her message to young people is to recognise the God gifted talent they have.
“If you have the talent of singing or dancing, try to create.”
Muriwaqa and her choir performed as PrimanaVia at the recent Fiji Fringe Festival held at the Suva Civic Centre Auditorium.
Tupou Bulai Muriwaqa.
Picture: Reinal Chand
Tuou Muriwaqa, back to camera, leads her choir at the Global Recycling Day program last month. Picture: Reinal Chand
The combined PrimanaVia choir perform at their concert in Suva, on February 22. Picture: ELIKI NUKUTABU
