Kapa Haka

It's over. Kua oti te kapa haka.

We (Dartmouth students) had our performance on Monday night, in front of an audience of 30 that included some of our homestay parents, Professor Igoe, and a few friends. Though we had done some warmup beforehand, while we were waiting backstage we were all getting anxious, and we began to doubt whether we'd be able to do justice to the dances and songs we'd been taught. Fortunately, our classmate Genevieve, an experienced dancer, had us circle up and gave us a quick "let's go out there and just do our best" speech, followed by a little "put your hands in the center and say something on the count of three" superhero circle. By the time we walked out the door onto the stage, we were all excited and happy to dive into our dancing. Of course, none of this confidence would have appeared if it hadn't been for the hours of rehearsal we'd spent with our indefatigable instructors, Richard and Angie.

In light of a recent class discussion involving the limitations of text-based narratives (Paul Stoller, for those wondering), I acknowledge the futility of retelling my story through text alone (with occasional links to music). Nonetheless, I trust that you, dear reader, will use the full power of your imagination to engage your senses of sight, hearing, and touch, thereby rebuilding my experience for yourself. Cool? Cool.

This whole long journey began a few weeks ago, when we were welcomed onto the University’s marae by Angie and Richard, both proud Māori speakers and performers. After leading us into the whare nui, and listening to our introductions (which involved us choosing a carving or weaving inside the whare that appealed to us individually), our teachers took us into the neighboring building (whare kai) and started us off with some simple songs to work on our pronunciation (we used these songs as warmups in later lessons).

Basic performance formation: women in a straight row, men in another row behind them, spaced to fill the gaps between women. This obviously shifts slightly over the course of a given song, but not dramatically.

(the lyrics for all the songs can be found at the end of the article)

AEIOU
(usually sung in B-flat or thereabouts)
Used to teach children the short and long vowels of Māori, this song also employs some easy movements, such as bending your arm up when saying the word piko (‘bend’) and then straightening it on the word toro (‘straight’).

Ahakamanaparatawangawha
(B-flat or thereabouts)
Now for consonants! Repeat after me: ‘a-ha-ka-ma-na-pa-ra-ta-wa-nga-fa' (the /r/ is pronounced like the tap in the English word ‘butter’). As the above song, it's used to teach kids about the alphabet. To make things more interesting, the song entails cycling all the short vowels through that giant nonsense word (ehekemeneperetewengewhe, etc.). Lastly, the whole song is sung to the tune of the hit single ‘Stupid Cupid.’

Interestingly, those two songs are not what most people would consider to be ‘traditional Māori’ music, since they were written to be accompanied (usually by guitar) and firmly ensconced in the Western system of harmony. However, they are part of a growing body of music established by the adoption of Western musical customs among popular Māori composers, which gained prominence among Māori and Pākehā alike throughout the twentieth century.

With those two songs mostly under our belt, in later lessons we soon moved on to the more complicated stuff.

Ehara i te mea
(E or F, with a half-step-up key change in the middle)
A beautiful song about love and the importance of one’s ancestors, Ehara i te mea is sung in two parts. First time around, unison with a pretty straightforward melody. Second time, a modified, more soulful melody with harmony, while everyone gently sways back and forth.

Papaki nui
(G or A)
Here we have a waiata-a-ringa (‘action song’), so called because the performers move in time to the music being sung. Through Papaki nui, we welcomed our audience to the marae (since it was, by custom, ‘our’ marae). It would take way too long for me to go through the whole song, but just know that it involves hand-waving, foot-sliding, and a general looseness of body. Also the melody is lovingly borrowed from another old-time favorite, Five Minutes More (thank you, Frank Sinatra) and coincidentally arranged by Richard's uncle.

Sidenote: it took a few lessons for us to realize just how talented our instructors are. They’ve both competed at the national level with their prestigious kapa haka team, but more impressive was seeing them demonstrate for us, whether it was Angie deftly twirling the poi or Richard bellowing the chant for the haka. Furthermore, their musical skills were much appreciated, since Angie patiently led us (many times) through all the singing while Richard played guitar. Overall, we could tell that if we had more time to take these classes, our teachers could show us so much more of what they were capable.

Anyhow, our final piece, the haka, required several intensive lessons to get down the intensity of the chanting and the movement. Since the men assume a rigid squatting position for most of the haka’s performance, Richard had us squat against a wall to start to make sure our backs were straight. Moving out from the wall, while in that stance, we learned the arm movements to be acted out in time to the steady, pounding pulse of every performer’s right foot. Since I am not the most kinesthetically gifted human being, these movements pushed my klutziness to new heights. But over time, I learned. The girls have similar movements, though they stand straight throughout the performance and have a narrower range of motion than the men. In addition, both Angie and Richard had to coach us on opening up our throats and using our diaphragms to push as much air as possible through our respiratory system, and thus produce the loudest cries possible. We were timid at first with all the new intense performance technique, but after a few lessons we were as bold and unrestrained as a group of rookies could be.

Ka mate
Translating roughly as ‘I die’ or ‘I will die’, the haka we performed recounts the harrowing tale of a warrior on the run, hiding from his enemies in a covered kumara-storage pit. Upon seeing his pursuer’s feet out of a crack at the top of the pit, he thinks he’s finished, but when he sees the ‘hairy man’ (tangata pūhuruhuru) standing next to his enemies, he is relieved, because he knows that man is protecting him by misleading his foes.
Our performance initially involved the women in front of the men (as usual), but after the first line is spoken twice, the men ran out through the gaps among the women to assume the front line in the squat position. In basically any performance of the haka, it works as a call-and-response chant, with the leader shouting ka mate twice and the performers responding twice with ka ora (‘I live’), while slapping their thighs. Then, with everyone in unison, the dancers move in time to the steady triplet beat of the chanting. After another round of the ka mate section, all the performers finish with a deep and satisfying hi.
This description does very little justice to the haka. I highly encourage you to see an example of this dance, if you haven't already done so (even though I already posted a link just a few weeks ago...awkward).

And with those five pieces in mind (in the order described), after weeks of compressed rehearsal and hasty memorization, plus a backstage regroup session...we performed our show.

Over the next few months, I will probably forget most of the movements we learned. Within a few years, I may forget every word of each song. But I won’t forget the way my feet felt pounding and sliding against the hard wood floor, the way our voices, male and female, twined in unison and in harmony, the way the whole building shook with the angry and joyful shouts of the haka. During our final performance, singing and dancing for our audience and for our instructors, we certainly weren’t perfect. In the heat of the moment, though, as we moved and chanted in time to a beat that now seemed more familiar than foreign, there was a feeling of unity and of being part of something much greater than the sum of its parts, and much older than we the young participants. I’m going to treasure that feeling, and because of it I am so grateful to our instructors for letting us share a small part of their culture.

Following the performance: a terrific slideshow put together by our friend Maggie, who hadn’t been well enough to perform with us but, being a master photographer, assembled her best pictures to show the audience (and remind us of) our New Zealand journey thus far. Some beautiful landscapes, a few action shots, and so many awkward face moments captured forever on film. Then, a massive repast that we, students and instructors, had rushed to prepare in the hours before the performance, which included a giant pot of pasta, semi-successful falafel (cooked by Abby, Grace, and me), mussel soup, six types of hummus (don’t judge), and for dessert, these weird but tasty cakes called Lamingtons (which somehow remind me of the Blancmanges from ‘Monty Python’). Even though this extravagant feast required an hour of scrubbing to recover from, we were all sad to say goodbye to our instructors and to the marae for the final time.

My next post will probably be about homestay things, since I’ve been in my lovely new home since last Saturday. Also, I’ve heard rumors of pictures and video of our rehearsals and performance that might eventually be available on the Interwebs...so if I obtain any more information on said resources, I might let y’all know.

For those interested, a little bit about the program and its surprising success among international students.

And finally...

LYRICS (ngā kupu)

AEIOU

ĀĒĪŌŪ (x2)
Piko piko piko piko piko piko toro piko
Toro toro toro toro toro toro piko toro

AEIOU (x2)
Piko piko piko piko piko piko toro piko
Toro toro toro toro toro toro piko toro

Ahakamanaparatawangawha

Ahakamanaparatawangawha
Ehekemeneperetewengewhe
Ihikiminipiritiwingiwhi
Ohokomonoporotowongowho
AEIOU
Uhukumunupurutuwunguwhu

Ehara i te mea

Ehara i te mea
Nō nāianei te aroha (‘love is not only a thing of today’)

(chorus)
Nō ngā tūpuna (‘it comes from the ancestors’)
Tuku iho, tuku iho (‘handed down, handed down’)

Te whenua, te whenua (‘the land, the land’)
Hei oranga mō te iwi (‘means life for the people’)
(chorus)

Tūmanako, whakapono (‘hope and faith’)
Ko te mea nui ko te aroha (‘but the greatest of all is love’)
(chorus)

Papaki nui

(most of the macrons here are either missing or wrong; I’m working from memory and not paper, people, give me a break)
(also I’m not translating all that, sorry)

Papaki nui ngā ringa maha
Waiata pai te reo pōwhiri
Ko te kapa haka o Waipapae
Tihei te karanga mihi
A ngā rangatahie
Tu whakanui ki
Te whakatau ki
Nā iwi e
Nō runga manuhiri
Nō raro manuhiri
Nā taha rua
Tupu kupu (karanga!)
E tū rōpū (maranga!)
Hei ha, hei ha
Hei hapainga te rau aroha
Harirū ki te katoa
Tēnā koutou
Tēnā koutou
Haere mai
Tēnā koutou
Tēnā koutou
Haere mai (first time through, go back to Nō runga manuhiri and then head to the end)
Ki taku hi, hi aue hi!

Ka mate

Ko te iwi Māori e ngunguru nei (‘the Māori people are rumbling’)
I au, au, aue ha!
Ko te iwi Māori e ngunguru nei
I au, au, aue ha!
Ka mate, ka mate (‘I die, I die’)
Ka ora, ka ora (‘I live, I live’)
Ka mate, ka mate
Ka ora, ka ora
Tēnei te tanga pūhuruhuru (‘behold the man, covered with hair’)
Nānā i tiki mai whakawhiti te rā (‘who caused the sun to shine’)
Upane, kaupane (‘up that step, up this step’)
Upane, kaupane
Whiti te rā (‘the sun was blazing’) (first time, repeat back to first ka mate)
Hi!