Kahurangi-Maori peforming arts group!!!

On Tuesday morning the 28^th of July Room 12 went to watch Kahurangi performing arts group. The whole school went to see it because it fits into their inquiry about the arts. The group done a series of Maori dances. They came from Hastings, everyone enjoyed it.

The performers were all wearing flax piu piu (skirts) and the boys had bare chests.  The girls had singlets with patterns on them most of the performers had moku (tattoos) either on their arms or legs.

The men performed using Ti Rakau. They were originally used for hand eye coordination practice and hunting. They danced with the sticks and the sticks were quite colourful with red and white. They are long but thin.

Ti Titorea are short sticks they were used to help eye coordination of warriors. They were exercise sticks for the upper and lower body. At the show, Kahurangi with them.

Kahurangi used two types of poi, the long poi and the short poi. The short poi represented heart beat and life. The long poi represented the native birds of New Zealand. It is difficult to do two poi at a time, let alone four! 

Kahurangi dance company gave 100% to the performance when mistakes were made the audience hardly even noticed. It they used lots of dramatic facial expressions. they did lots of coordinating tricks with their sticks. As one of them said "practice makes perfect!"

Kahurangi Dance Group comes once a year. The boys really like tirakau and most of the girls enjoyed the poi's. They did some ricks with the titiorea and the audience thought it was great. the hope to see them again and they will be looking forward to it.