Olivia Foa'i

Hailing from Auckland, Olivia Foa'i performs as a singer, songwriter, actress, dancer, and choreographer, earning her widest recognition through membership in the enduring New Zealand ensemble Te Vaka. As the daughter of group founder Opetaia Foa'i, she entered feature films with a role in Disney’s Moana, supplying vocals for tracks jointly written by her father, composer Mark Mancina, and lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda.

She began dancing in early childhood and stepped onto a stage for the first time at age two, soon adding singing to her activities. In 2010 songwriting entered her repertoire, followed by the posting of several cover recordings on YouTube. While studying contemporary Polynesian dance, she started creating choreography for Te Vaka during her teenage years. The initial composition she developed with her father for the group, “Kofu O Lakau,” surfaced on the 2011 album Havili. Under the name Livy Clay she issued her first solo single, “Never Let Me Be Myself Again,” near the close of 2015.

After prior appearances in Te Vaka music videos, she made her screen-acting bow as the drummer of a fictional band in the Australian short Band of Rock, which premiered in October 2016. Weeks afterward her voice reached global theaters via the Disney animated film Moana. Listed as vocalist on three of its numbers, she received sole billing for the opening piece “Tulou Tagaloa” and featured on both the full original soundtrack and the 2017 highlights collection Moana: The Songs.