Motone
It's about being creative
Story & photos by Glenda Tuaine
Being asked to write an article about your own company
and what you do initially sat strangely with me. How can
I write something without sounding pretentious or a bit
naff? But when I thought about it, why
not! I know my own work, I know our
company history and I am a straight
shooter so here is the story of Motone
the Creative Events Company of the
Cook Islands.
In late 2008 my husband Mo Newport
and Tony Bullivant who was the then
owner operator of Café Salsa decided to
hold some music events at the café. At
that time not much was really happening
on the scene. Very few overseas acts or
local contemporary musicians showcasing
their style. The scene was mostly about
resort duos playing dining standard
songs. Mo and Tony started up some Friday night bands and
with the introduction of the occasional visiting artist a new
entertainment scene started to form. The events we ran then
were small but had an avid following of locals with tourists
really stumbling across the event but they formed the basis of
Motone and Mo and I knew we wanted to return to producing
creative events, a professional career that both of us had come
from in New Zealand.
Mo and I officially formed Motone in 2010 having already held
our first Opera event and several overseas bands performances
utilising our extensive background of arts practice and
production to build a new direction here in the Cooks. Prior
to returning to the Cook Islands I had been the Manager of all
Public events in Te Papa the National Museum of New Zealand
46 • Escape Magazine
and the New Zealand Fringe Festival Director. I had been acting,
directing, Radio DJing, doing the odd bit of TV presenting and
writing the occasional play! Mo had been part of the Wellington
City Council Public Events technical
team, he was also an active musician on
the circuit and the Drummer for the
iconic NZ band the Warratahs and a
regular Film and TV crewman.
We returned to Rarotonga for me to
take the role of Cook Islands Tourism
Marketing Manager which I loved
doing but after 5 years of working in
the Tourism Industry I said farewell to
that role and welcomed the return to my
real passion and the Industry that is in
Julia Deans at my blood, sweat and tears - creating arts
Divas in Paradise. events. Arts in any form has the ability
to open up discussion on taboo subjects,
build new awareness of others and educate communities on
political topics. It is a forum in which you can give back to
the community in a multitude of ways and that is something
that we felt passionate about. Motone was designed to be a
company developed on a model of triple bottom line. As much
as we create a range of arts events for the company we also
made the commitment to arts and performing arts education
as our company’s charitable work and have over the years
held workshops at schools and the Creative Centre with all
our artists, Opera singers, Filmmakers, Musicians, Carvers,
Weavers and many more. If they work with Motone they must
be prepared to conduct workshops in our schools, to collaborate
with our local artists and to participate in arts exchange. Out
of those workshops we now have our very own rising Opera