Countdown begins for Kapa Haka

The buzz is building for the biennial Kapa Haka Festival at Bastion Pt as the 36 competing teams, including two from Australia, hone their performances in the countdown to February 22-24.

We join Piripi Davis of host team Te Puru o Tamaki, Orakei Marae, in a weekly pre-festival diary.

"We've been rehearsing for about five months and we're now honing the performance down to its final stages.

"We started off with about two rehearsals a week, at nights, but now we're doing at least four a week.

"We have three generations of Davis in this group: my mother Esther, who is one of the choreographers and our kaiako (teacher); myself and my brother Paul; and my children Lisa, who is the female leader, and Michael, the male leader. Paul is performing with a bullet lodged in his hip [Paul Davis was shot when a masked man entered the marae in October], but he's doing fine. It doesn't seem to have slowed him down too much.

"This is the first time we've hosted the festival and we are aware we have to be good hosts to the performers and all of our guests. We're expecting around 100,000 people to come over the three days and we want to make sure we provide the best hospitality we can. But at the same time, we have to put on a fantastic performance.

"We've been rehearsing as a group of 60 but our final team will be 40. It's sad for those who have to go but that's the way it is. We perform a new work every year in the regionals. We first made the national competitions in 1996, and we've qualified for the nationals every two years since.

"We're all competitive with each other and everything we do has to be kept secret from each other, every detail. We might all include versions of traditional songs but the way each of us does it is different.

"Right now we are working on our mau taiaha [long clubs] for the men, and the women are concentrating on the poi. The level of fitness has to be high and we have to watch our diets, although in the past some of the men have been pretty big."