sentences:  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 .-
  
  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.