Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Kapa Haka



Practice, practice, practice every single day! I guess we did need the practice but my legs always got tired. I wanted to sit down but my teacher would give me a growling if I did! Finally, the day came! We got on the bus and we were on the bus for an hour! No need to worry, we sang all the way to Te Mahia school.  Before I knew it we were already there. We entered their entrance to the field where there were kids from Te Mahia school and the girls had Moko's on there chins like us, and the boys had things kind of like Moko's except it was all over there chests(the boys at our school did not have that!) A man spoke in Maori and he called for us to enter, someone by us called back. I do not know if it was a teacher or anything because I could not see that well over everyone. We entered and some people sang songs and the Wairoa College sang some also, and then we did too! It was not the real performance, we just sang Whakapunake (a welcome song about the waka (boat)). Soon the first school got on stage, we did not get to see them because we were too busy getting on our Pupus (skirts) and putting the grass flowers in our hair. We looked beautiful! We got into our starting positions and the other school got off stage and we got on! John called out to a lady and they called back and forth in Maori so I didn't know what they were saying! Sian (my friend the leader) led and then we sang along! We moved around a lot and our whole performance was 12 minutes long! There were different leaders for all the different songs. We finally got to the song were we had to use the poi! A poi is a string with a ball on the end that you swing around while you sing.  Using the poi is the hardest part I know. All the motions are hard to learn but when you are swinging around a string with a ball type thing on the bottom, that is a whole different story! Lucky we had done all that practice, practice, practice stuff that I was moaning about! I had to put lots of effort into that! When we were finished we walked of the stage and everyone else went to get changed.  
We watched lots more performers and there were some really good girls at doing all the faces the boys do in the Haka, there were some really good boys doing the Haka but all in all we did really well! Several  hours passed and finally we lined up to leave. We were going to miss a couple performances but we had to get back to school by 3:00 so the bus people would not miss the bus! On the bus ride home we did not sing much because we were tired. We had all had a very long day, because we had to be to school an hour and a half early to make it there on time! I wanted to go home! Mom took me home so we did not have to wait around! I had a very, very good day! (Good thing we had a dress rehearsal because I don't think we would have been as good!)
No Worries - Elena!

Mom's note - Elena did a great job in the kapahaka!  I posted a video on my facebook page.  Check out this  link!  www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1056524458812

2 comments:

  1. That's my favorite color blue. Alena stands out with her blond hair and blue eyes. She makes the whole thing look pretty.

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  2. I loved the video Elena! the blue is a wounderful color on you!
    monique

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