Any weekend or week night I join an army of mums, dads or caregivers sitting in draughty halls or the sidelines of sports fields and pools watching their kids take steps toward becoming dancers or athletes. But this was my first experience of hula champs.
Miss 6 and I have gone west to Te Pou, the new home of Maori theatre, opened this winter in New Lynn. My daughter has joined a group of girls at a keiki (children's) hula class to become an honorary hula sister. She is quickly discovering there's a lot more to this than learning the dance steps and moving to the beat of the ipu heke, a traditional Hawaiian percussion instrument made from gourds.
The class, led by teacher Aruna Po-Ching from Pasifika Sway, The Hula Journey, involves learning the language and culture of the Hawaiian islands as well as the dances. Miss 6 is enthusiastic, commits to the dance steps and relishes the chance to play a few language and movement games. But she doesn't think she's quite ready to join the girls, aged 4 to 10, for today's performance at the Koanga Festival @ Te Pou.
The Koanga festival is a three-week celebration to herald the start of spring. It's also part of the 20th Going West literary festival which, today and tomorrow, holds its annual Books and Writers Weekend. That programme includes author talks, book and poetry readings, theatre performances and the Koanga Festival @ Te Pou's Whanau Day. The day is a chance for all Aucklanders to learn more about Te Pou. As well as being a home for Maori theatre, it also welcomes other groups that use Tikanga Maori principals: respect for whanau (family), manaakitanga (care for a person's mana) and aroha (love). It has fast become a popular rehearsal base for a number of performing arts groups and has staged a number of plays. Whanau member Amber Curreen says it opened with a very successful family day and the Te Pou team was keen to do it again.
