Kahurangi Kapa Haka/Dance Group Performance

Earlier this week, some performers came from a company in Hastings, Wellington called Kahurangi Maori Dance Group came to our school to perform for us. The Company specialises in Kapa Haka and they travel all over the world, performing and teaching people about the Maori Culture. There were five people who came, Jordan, Lucky, Aroha, Hera and Zoe.

Our class went in the middle block with all the other intermediate classes and some other Yr 5 classes. The show started with Zoe talking about the Maori beginning before the rest of them came out, danced and sang with their powerful voices. Not only did they have great formation and actions, their facial expressions really did top off the dance. There were smiles, pukana and side glances from all of the dancers, which was really good.

After the first dance, they all introduced themselves and talked about Taonga and what a Taonga is to them. Then they went down the line, telling us what a Taonga is to them. Jordan started off with, “A Taonga to me would be….. Food!” and Lucky ended with, “A Taonga to be would have to be this necklace,” and held up a greenstone from around his neck.

I enjoyed the show but that wasn’t all, all of the Senior Kapa Haka students got to workshop with the Kahurangi people where we learnt I simple song with the poi, how to stand properly and we even had a go at Titi Torea which are the double short sticks. Even though, we were pretty good, it was nothing compared to their precision and accuracy during the performance.

The show and workshop were great and I enjoyed both of them. I think the thing that made it GREAT was their jokes, they were awesome performers and they were also very humorous. The main comedian was Aroha and after the introduction, he talked the most, he introduced most things and explained Maori tradition. I hope the group could maybe come back some time and teach us more about the Maori culture and their traditions.