Kapa Haka Festival: Every second counts in working out final programme

Kia ora koutou (Greetings once again). The Aotearoa Maori Performing Arts Festival is just around the corner. Just under two weeks to go, giving us only six more practice sessions to put the finishing touches to our programme.

The choreography is in its final stages, but after timing our programme we have found it is a smidgen too long. Now we are having to pinch a couple of seconds from each of the songs, to enable us to stay within the 25 minutes allocated to each group to perform their programme.

There are six items or types of songs that must be performed. The Whakaeke (entrance), Moteatea (traditional chant), Waiata-a-Ringa (action song), Haka (war dance) and the Whakawatea (exit from the stage). Another strategy for groups who find they are short of time is to perform a Waiata Tira (Choral). This item is not compulsory, but gives groups an extra five minutes to play with and has the bonus of warming up the voices. This is one strategy we have used to lengthen our time on stage.

We have finally chosen our 40-strong team to represent Te Puru o Tamaki (host tribe) from Ngati Whatua on February 22 at 7.25 pm. It has been a lot of hard work to reach the standard for this festival, with people committing endless hours of their time.

Now as we watch the development of the venue we are all pretty keen to show the crowd what we have been practising for over the past five months.Piripi Davis

* Aotearoa Traditional Maori Performing Arts Society Festival Kapa Haka 2002, Bastion Pt, Feb 22-24.