The best of Tolaga Bay’s arts and music

SHOWCASE OF EXCELLENCE: Woven garments, paintings, performance and prints with more than two centuries of history feature in Tolaga Bay Area School’s exhibition Te Haemata. It opens on Tuesday. Picture supplied

A showcase of excellence in visual arts, music and dance opens in Tolaga Bay next week as part of Te Ahikaa (Tuia 250 commemorations).

The exhibition Te Haemata — “seeking excellence, something that stands out above all else” — will feature paintings, prints, live whakairo (carving), raranga (weaving), music and dance.

This will be the school’s third annual arts event that looks at various aspects of the “dual heritage, shared futures” theme in the lead-up to the 250th anniversary commemorations of first meetings between Maori and Europeans with the arrival of British explorer James Cook in 1769.

The raranga is woven around themes of whakapapa, connectedness and collaboration, says Tolaga Bay Area School principal Nori Parata.

“Some of the weavers will be weaving and creating tukutuku panels, and a couple of carvers who are completing a significant carving will be working on that during the exhibition.”

This year marked the first time Tolaga Bay Area School students have performed in the Smokefree Tangata Beats event. The school’s year 11 group Resolution, who took home the Tangata Beats award, will perform on Thursday night.

Within the exhibition will be a darkened room that features students’ prototypes of Te Pourewa, the beacon of light to be installed at Hoturangi as part of the 250th commemorations next year.

Included in the exhibition will be 20 prints made from copper plates etched with drawings of plants collected by Endeavour’s botanists. The prints were gifted to Te Aitanga a Hauiti in 2008 by Britain’s Natural History Museum Banks collection director Dr Steve Cafferty.

Te Haemata opens at Reynolds Hall, Tolaga Bay on Tuesday at 10am and runs until Friday 3pm. The hall closes at 3pm each day.