April 05, 2016
No separation between art and life for Rowley Habib
A member of Te Ika a Maui Players says Rowley Habib showed younger generations there was no separation between art and life.
The Ngati Tuwharetoa writer of plays, poems, short stories and film scripts died on Sunday at the age of 83.
Actor and director Jim Moriarty had a role his Death of the Land, which the Players took to venues around the country in 1976 shortly after the Maori Land March.
He says people like Habib, Don Selwyn and Wi Kuki Kaa did their art as well as getting down to help Maori at the flaxroots.
"He had scrub cutting gangs, he did all those early PEP schemes but he still managed to find time to do his art. He didn't see a separation between the so-called world of art and helping the people. We flatted together for a couple of years, he lived in my house for a couple of years and we had some great times creating work so the foundation for our prose, our poetry, our theatre writing, Rowley is the koro of that stuff," Mr Moriarty says.
Rowley Habib's tangi is at the whanau homestead near Taupo, where the funeral service will be held tomorrow morning.
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