It’s one of the biggest events on the calendar for te ao Māori and Te Matatini is back this year, bringing the best of haka and waiata from throughout Aotearoa and Australia.
New Plymouth/Ngāmotu and the people of Te Kāhui Maunga (Taranaki-Whanganui) will play hosts to the festival this year.
It can be hard to sell how important Te Matatini is to te ao Māori. Festival organisers estimate the event will bring 70,000 people to Taranaki and 1.8 million live viewers.
Accommodation for the week-long festival is effectively sold out – or will cost you an arm and a leg – anywhere north of Whanganui.
Mōtai Tangata Rau compete at the 2024 Tainui regionals. Photo / Te Matatini Enterprises
What is Te Matatini?
Te Matatini – the “Olympics of kapa haka” – is the biennial Māori performing arts competition.
Te Matatini began life in 1972 as the Polynesian Festival. At the inaugural festival in Rotorua, 17 kapa haka performed alongside six Polynesian groups representing Samoa, the Cook Islands and Tokelau.
The festival has gone through many name changes over the years. For many years it was known as Aotearoa Traditional Māori Performing Arts Festival, before becoming Te Matatini, meaning “the many faces”, in 2004.
Te Matatini celebrated 50 years of kapa haka in 2022, with the release of an album of classic and modern waiata from the festival’s first five decades, and a book, He Tau Makuru, charting the festival’s history with detailed recollections and accounts from each event.
Te Matatini 2023 champions Te Kapa Haka o Te Whānau a Apanui.
Pukekura/Bowl of Brooklands in New Plymouth will serve as the atamira, the stage for this year’s Te Matatini.
You might recognise the stage from the annual Womad festival and this year it will be filled with the sound of waiata, haka and the beat of the poi.
The festival always starts with the huge pōhiri by the host. It is always a show of the host’s uniqueness, tribute to their rich history in the area and no doubt Te Kāhui Maunga, the peaks of Mt Taranaki, would be a key factor.
The four days of preliminary competition start on Tuesday, February 25. There are four pools: Te Ihu, Te Haumi, Te Kei and Te Awa.
The 12 finalists, the top three from each pool, will be announced on the evening of Friday, February 28. They will have to perform for a second time on the final day, on Saturday, March 1.
Te Matatini o Te Kāhui Maunga 2025 will be broadcast live on TVNZ 2 and live-streamed on TVNZ+, which will also have catch-up viewing available. Viewers can also watch live on Whakaata Māori and online at Māori+.
The festival cycles around the regions of Aotearoa – the next one will be held in Te Tauihu (Nelson-Marlborough) in 2027.
Crowds watch a Te Matatini performance at Eden Park in 2023. Photo / RNZ
Who is competing at Te Matatini?
Fifty-five groups have earned a spot this year – by far the most groups to compete at a single festival and 10 more than competed in Tāmaki Makaurau in 2023.
So many groups qualified last year that an extra day of competition was added to accommodate the increase.
The groups came from Te Matatini’s 13 regions, 12 in New Zealand and one in Australia.
Groups must have earned qualification at one of the regional competitions held the year before Matatini. The kapa haka performing cycle alternates between regionals and nationals every year.
The number of groups that earn a qualification spot depends on how many compete at the regional competitions.
If between two and four groups perform at the regionals, one group will qualify. The ratio of qualifiers increases gradually with the number of competing groups. If 21 or more groups compete, then six of those groups would qualify. Six is the maximum number of groups that can qualify from a single region.
Each group must consist of no fewer than 24 performers and no more than 40 on stage during the performance.
Each of the 55 qualifying groups would have been in wānanga (practice) for the past several months, composing, choreographing, refining and perfecting their performance.
Groups have a maximum of four minutes to perform the waiata tira on top of time for the rest of the bracket.
While items such as the mōteatea stick closely to traditional Māori performance, others, especially the whakaeke and whakawātea, offer much more opportunity for experimentation.
Famously in 2017, members of Te Iti Kahurangi entered the stage on all fours mooing like cows. Their whakaeke, He Kau Kawana, composed by Brad Totorewa, retold the history of land confiscation by Governor George Grey.
Over the years stage choreography, props and costumes have all been incorporated into the performances. In 2013, Te Arawa group Kataore erected a full-scale meeting house and had one performer climb to the top.
The first four days of Te Matatini are set aside for preliminary competition.
Each day serves as one competition pool and only three groups qualify from each pool, so groups are effectively only competing with other groups performing on the same day.
Groups are judged on their performance in the six compulsory items, plus the quality of te reo. The three groups with the highest marks on each day advance to the finals.
The finalists will be announced on the evening of Friday, February 28. Fifty-five groups will be cut to only 12 finalists in a brutal cull.
All 12 finalists compete again on Saturday, March 1, in Te Matangirua – finals day – with a clean slate meaning marks and placings from the pool competitions do not carry over into the finals.
This has led to surprise winners at times, such as in 2013 when Te Iti Kahurangi were the highest-placing team in the preliminary rounds winning many of the items, but on finals day it was Te Waka Huia who came away as champions.
It gave teams that made the finals a chance to lift their performance and clinch the title.
The winners take home the supreme title of Toa Whakaihuwaka, the Ngāpo Pimia Wehi Duncan McIntyre Trophy and bragging rights for the next two years.
The winning group also represents Aotearoa at events around the world. The 2023 winners, Te Whānau a Apanui, represented Aotearoa at the Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC) last year.
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