It’s passionate, it’s emotional, it’s fierce, it’s disciplined, it’s beautiful and it’s highly competitive.
It’s Te Matatini and more than 240 kapa haka performers from the Rotorua area will this week represent Te Arawa with hopes of being named among the top performing arts groups in New Zealand.
There are six rōpū (groups) from Te Arawa that will take the stage at Te Matatini Herenga Waka Herenga Tangata National Kapa Haka Festival being held at Eden Park in Auckland from tomorrow.
The rōpū include Te Pikikōtuku o Ngāti Rongomai, Te Hekenga Ā Rangi, Tūhourangi-Ngāti Wāhiao, Ngāti Rangiwewehi, Te Mātarae I Ōrehu and Te Kapa Haka o Ngāti Whakaue.
Te Matatini is held every two years and showcases the best regional teams from 13 different rohe throughout New Zealand and Australia. On every other year, the regions hold their own competitions to select their finalists to head to the national event.
The Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to Te Matatini going ahead in 2021 so this year the performers are tipped to be extra pumped to hit the stage.
This year’s event will celebrate 50 years since Te Matatini started in 1972 in Rotorua. Performing arts stalwart Trevor Maxwell from Rotorua remembers that event well.
Alongside his wife, the late Atareta Maxwell, the couple led Ngāti Rangiwewehi for more than 30 years - taking the group on to win two national titles in 1983 and 1996.
Fellow Te Arawa group Te Mātarae I Ōrehu were named overall champions in 2000 and 2011.
Maxwell, who is a Te Matatini life member, said Te Arawa groups historically punched above their weight come trophy time.
”It’s lovely when I hear other people from other parts of the rohe and around the country say that Rotorua is the heart of Māoridom and we saw that more than anything recently when we hosted our indigenous friends for the NRL All Stars games in Rotorua.”
Te Arawa’s kapa haka performers don’t just “hit the books” six months out from competition time. Maxwell said they lived and breathed their culture and for many it was their job to perform to tourists.
However, the time and effort to prepare for Te Matatini was immense Maxwell said. Each rōpū had its own composers who spent the entire year leading up to the competition writing waiata and putting together the choreography for their 25-minute performance.
The lyrics were special to each rōpū - for instance, Maxwell recalled one of Ngāti Rangiwewehi’s waiata being about grievances over the late Te Arawa soldier Haane Manahi’s Victoria Cross snub.
Maxwell said paying tribute to lost loved ones was a big part of each rōpū’s performance and he had no doubt Tūhourangi-Ngāti Wāhiao would acknowledge their former leader, composer and performer Hereana Roberts, who died suddenly last year while the group was in Rarotonga.
Roberts had trained four generations of Tūhourangi Ngāti Wahiao descendants in kapa haka and had contributed more than 30 years of service, which would make Tūhourangi-Ngāti Wāhiao’s performance extra emotional this year.
Maxwell said he had no doubt tributes would also be paid to Te Arawa’s great chief Tā Toby Curtis, who died in August last year, as well as Ngāti Pikiao and Ngāti Makino kaumātua Muriwai Ihakara, one of the titans of kapa haka and Māori culture and arts, who died in January last year.
While Maxwell is now considered kapa haka royalty and will get to relax and enjoy the week’s festival, he said he still treasured his Te Matatini memories.
One of his fondest memories was winning the prestigious title of kaitātaki tāne (best male leader) in 1973, when the event was held in Rotorua.
“I was just a youngster then with a couple of big sideburns like Elvis,” Maxwell joked.
Today, Te Matatini the visitors to Auckland were welcomed with a pōhiri, which was expected to attract more than 6000 people.
Competition officially starts tomorrow and finishes on Friday when 12 finalists would be announced to perform again on Saturday.
Each rōpū has 25 minutes to perform a choral, whakaeke (entrance song), waiata tawhito (traditional chant), waiata-a-ringa (action song), poi, haka and whakawātea (exit song).
The judges will be watching closely, marking them on te reo Māori skills and awarding points in different categories. Prizes will also be given out for non-aggregate items including best choral, kākahu (costume), kaitātaki tāne (male leader) and kaitātaki wāhine (female leader).
The event will next be held in Rotorua in 2039 and Tauranga in 2035.
Wednesday:
Ngāti Rangiwewehi - 1.45pm-1.45pm
Thursday:
Tūhourangi-Ngāti Wāhiao - 8.15am-8.45am
Te Hekenga Ā Rangi - 1.10pm-1.40pm
Te Mātarae I Ōrehu - 4.10pm-4.40pm
Friday:
Te Kapa Haka o Ngāti Whakaue - 8.50am-9.20am
Te Pikikōtuku o Ngāti Rongomai - 10am-10.30am
Saturday:
12 finalists perform from 8.15am
Prizegiving - 4.45pm
Closing prayer - 5.30pm