We love Wednesdays!

Another fantastic Kapa haka session today with Whaea Mata.  Our Frankley students have been practising their words and actions lots and we have pretty much mastered E Pikinga Poupou.  This is a celebration song which we will be able to perform as a whole school together on many occasions.

Today Whaea Mata talked to us about pukana and its meaning as part of our performance.

Pūkana or facial expressions are an important facet of Māori performance. They help emphasise a point in a song or haka, and demonstrate the performer’s ferocity or passion.

For women, pūkana involves opening the eyes wide and jutting out their chin.

For men, it means widening the eyes and stretching out their tongue or bearing their teeth.

Though these expressions may be intimidating, they are not necessarily a sign of aggression, but may simply show strong and deep-felt emotions.

Whole School Kapa Haka

This year sees the entire Frankley School (students, all staff, community) take part in a weekly Kapa haka session.  Whaea Mata leads us into Te Ao Māori through te reo and waiata.  Our first session, Matapaepae was blown away by how much we had practised for Mr Ritai's Poroporoaki and that we knew the lyrics to our waiata so well.

These were little bits of knowledge that Whaea Mata told us to remember...

• In Taranaki, we say the "h" sound as a silent letter, e.g. "whakapono" is said wa-car-poor-naw.
• We learnt about the boundaries of Te Ati Awa iwi, spreading out between Omata, Stratford and Urenui.
• We talked about the vowel sounds and that if we mispronounce them, the words can have a totally different meaning.

Commands that we learnt:

• Ki raro - hands down at your side
• Ki a wiri - gently shake hands
• Hope - hands on hips, boys fingers spread, girls in a closed fist.