Kapa Haka A Japanese Viewpoint

Have you ever seen Kapa Haka? Kapa Haka is a traditional Maori dance. The All Blacks that play an active part around the world often dance the Haka before a rugby game. If you have an opinion that you may go to New Zealand you have to see Kapa Haka. Kapa Haka is one of the things you want to do. You will be sure to be moved when you see Kapa Haka for the first time.

I belong to the Kapa Haka club. Some days ago, I went to see a Kapa Haka competition in Hawera for the club's activities. The students who participated in the Kapa Haka competition gave a speech and danced Kapa Haka. Normally, we would have performed Kapa Haka, but there were not enough people for a performance, so we participated in only the speech category. I was disappointed when I heard about that because I had learned some songs and Poi and practiced everyday for this competition. The Kapa Haka competition was held on Thursday and Friday. On Thursday we arrived at the hall of the competition, soon after we appeared on stage and did the opening ceremony with other students who participated in the competition.

And the speeches started. I thought that the speaker would speak by themselves from the start, but it was not like that. All the students except the speaker sat on the floor behind the speaker and waited for the close of the speech. Some of the audience broke out into cheers during the speech while the speaker was speaking. The speeches were quite different from Japan's ones where only the speaker gives a speech quietly. I thought that we have to model their speech, because all the speakers conveyed their speech with gestures and emphasised the dynamics when they were speaking.

The second day of the competition was a dance performance day. My club members and I were merely looking at the performance. Each school was wearing a particular folk costume of the Maori, and applying special effects such as tattoos. The folk costume of the Maori is a little individual. The male costume is like fundoshi, (underwear) the female costume is a dress made of a plant (flax). A few of the performers were wearing a coat made of feathers over a dress or a fundoshi. The part of the skirt that is made of wood made a lovely sound and made the skirt billow lightly. That sounded enchanting to me. Every school was spectacular, so my heart was throbbing violently at all times while looking at the performance.

I was overwhelmed by songs that all males and females sang loudly at the top of their voices from the bottom of their stomach. In addition, the Haka the males danced was greatly wild so I though humans are essentially creatures. In any event Poi (one of the Maori dances) was really attractive. When we danced Poi, we used two soft balls with string attached. They were swinging poi rapidly and dancing elegantly. This is not all! The audience began to yell and dance to the performers, when the performers finished dancing I was amazed at their actions. I had a full time in these two days. I could be deeply immersed in the world of Maori culture. I want to explain and perform Kapa Haka when I'm in Japan. Therefore, I'll keep trying to learn Kapa Haka.

By Runa