Nga Tama-a-Ranqi

Tu Tangata, Issue 33, 1 December 1986, Page 31

Nga Tama-a-Ranqi

FESTIVAL 86

Hard work, aroha and karakia

“■w" 'W'oake kite putake ote houhi kia 1 1 ui atu me pewhea te hou i te .A. Arongo, te aroha kite whenua ...” “Go to the roots of the lace-bark tree to ask how to implant and stabilise aroha within people ...” Hamilton haka team Nga Tama-a-Rangi fourth in the Polynesian Festival is an example of the answer to the question offered by those words of old. To understand the answer one must first understand the lace-bark tree or its feature lace. All parts are finely connected yet are fragments in their own right, just like people. Aroha makes up that connecting point and to stabilise it, it must be woven delicately between each part to strengthen the whole. It’s on that finely-tuned aroha base that Nga Tama-a-Rangi has developed. That base was the first, and most important, stake in the ground. And that’s what it took for this young team to reach the Polynesian Festival. “We’re a working, living whanau more than just a team of people who get

together to compete in haka competitions,” says kaumatua and tutor Tom Winitana. “By whanau I mean these young people have a common aroha base which extends further than just coming together to practise haka.” The club was formed seven years ago under the umbrella of husband and wife team Tom and Claire Winitana, but only a handful of those original members remain. Mr Winitana explains the club’s origins: “The club came into being after several ex-school students who had been involved in cultural activities at school, found there was nothing in the community for them. There was a tremendous vacuum in the community. “There was nowhere that they could go to have their cultural needs fulfilled.” Mostly because of its youthful base, club membership has changed constantly over the years to the extent now that every year a third or more of the team is grass-green. Of the 33 performers at the Polyne-

sian Festival, seven were college students one only als year-old— while the rest of the team were about 22. “If you’re over 25 you’re getting into real oldies territory,” says Mr Winitana. That shifting youthful basis poses problems with keeping the team’s level of performance on a high even keel. “It takes dedication, hard work and aroha as well as a lot of karakia to bring them all up to scratch,” says Mrs Winitana. “It means you have to push pretty hard at times and it means the people in the team have to be able to take that.” As a build-up to the festival the second the team has been to they were put through their paces relentlessly three times a week. “You have to be careful not to go overboard and burn everyone out,” says Mr Winitana. “You have to try and judge how far to go so that by the time of the performance they’re hitting their peak. “A lot of it has to do with psychology at least psyching everyone up a bit at a time.”

All of the team’s material is original, drawing from the old and the new. The team’s festival poi, which drew much acclaim from the audience (a standing ovation), had new innovations and concepts. Named, Poi Rererangi, it told of the trip from the Waikato to Christchurch. The men’s haka, which also drew a good response, covered the often testy subject of the role of the male Maori today. It spoke of transvestitism, homosexuality and the decline of the male today. Nga Tama-a-Rangi has been successful at competitions outside the national festival, including the Coronation, Regatta and Hauraki. It also entertains at functions around the Waikato. Team members teach the cultural arts at five Hamilton schools - four at college level and one intermediate school. All those college teams have been placed in the secondary school competitions.