A kaleidascope of speakers and performers will join us at Ka Haka. Confirmed speakers include:

Anameka Pirini

Nō Te Whakatōhea, Te Whānau-a-Apanui, Ngāi Tai me te Whānau a Tairongo!

He huarahi te haka ki tōku ao Māori, ki tōku reo Māori, ki ngā hītoria o te iwi, ki ngā kōrero tuku iho.

I tipu ake au i Kutarere, ā, ki taua marae hoki i tipu taku aroha ki ngā mahi a Hine Rēhia. Nā taku kuia te kākano o ngā mahi a Rēhia i whakatō ki roto ki ahau. Kua tekau mā ono tau ahau e haka ana mō Ōpōtiki-mai-Tawhiti, he waimarie nōku kua noho ahau i raro i ngā whakaakoranga a tōku Pāpā, i a Te Kahautu Maxwell. He nui ngā whakaakoranga o roto, ko te kotahitanga, te whanaungatanga, te noho a ngā tuākana ki ngā teina, te aroha ki te tangata. I kuraina ahau ki Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato, ā, nō te tau 2009 ka whakawhiwhia ahau ki te Tohu Paerua, Master of Arts with Honours. Kua whitu tau ahau e whakaako ana i roto i ngā Whare Wānanga, ā, i tēnei wā kei Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiarangi ahau e whakaako ana i te tohu, Ngā Mana Whakairo a Toi.

Annette Wehi

Annette Wehi is a lecturer of Māori Performing Arts at Indigenous University Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi in New Zealand, where her passion is to recognise the potential in Māori as they strive towards excellence in Māori performing arts. Annette is the co-leader of premiere kapa haka Te Waka Huia, five time national champions and recognised cultural ambassadors of the prestigious biennial festival Te Matatini. Annette is a Board Member of Te Matatini the national organisation responsible for the traditional Māori performing arts, and has lead delegations to the Shanghai World Trade Expo, the Venice Biennale in Italy, America’s Cup in San Francisco, the Merrie Monarch in Hawaii, the Royal Edinburgh Tattoo and Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland and the inaugural awards dinner of ANOC (Association of National Olympic Committees) in Bangkok. During the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand in 2011, in the role of Artistic Director, Annette co-created Arohanui – The Greatest Love for the Real New Zealand Festival. In 2007, Annette won the University of Auckland’s Mira Szaszy Award for Māori Business Leadership and in 2013 Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi’s CEO’s award for Innovation and Cultural Leadership.

Cathy Livermore

Cathy Livermore (Waitaha, Kati Mamoe, Kai Tahu) is a dancer, choreographer, teacher and healer. She is an independent artist and Head of Dance at PIPA (Pacific Institute of Performing Arts). In 2014, Cathy was invited to participate in New Mexico, USA, with Dancing Earth’s Summer Intensive Residency where she performed, choreographed and taught with an international delegation of twenty-five indigenous artists. In 2015, Cathy initiated and co-ordinated Taharangi, a three-staged international indigenous choreographic research and collaboration facilitated within three diverse communities in NZ, including Auckland, Taranaki and Dunedin, involving community development, choreographic development and performance funded by CNZ whilst hosting international indigenous artist Trey Pickett for three months of cultural and artistic wananga. Cathy’s most recent work ‘Wai me’ was performed as part of Pacific Skin, multimedia interactive technology dance performance in April 2015, as part of an international collaboration with Japanese dance artists. Cathy was selected by CNZ in its Asia Artist Exchange Fund and travelled to Japan for a cultural exchange and a creative choreographic research process in collaboration with Japanese dance artist, Aska Suzuki, engaging with three different communities within Japan: the indigenous people of northern Japan, the Ainu, with the religious community of Shinto and with the professional and youth dance communities of urban Nagoya.

Dione Joseph

Dione Joseph is a theatre practitioner with a professional and academic background in the performing arts. Working from a community and cultural engagement position, she has been professionally involved in the arts over the past ten years. She directed and dramaturged a range of works and has published extensively as a stage critic and arts journalist. She has travelled internationally to China, Canada, Austria, the UK and USA on various residencies, fellowships and community invitations and this has led to an expanding body of scholarship in a range of different areas with an emphasis on Indigenous performance. She holds an MA in Community and Cultural Development from Victorian College of the Arts.

Eddie Madril

Eddie Madril is a member of the Pascua Yaqui tribe of Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora Mexico. For over thirty years, he’s been an active member of the Native American community and a representative of his culture through various aspects. He has been a member of the Board of Directors for Friendship House of American Indians Inc for fifteen years and, for ten years, a member of the advisory committee at the De Young Museum for their Native programming, where he recently produced an all Native fashion show including traditional regalia and his modern designs. He was recently awarded the KQED Community Hero award for his contributions to the Bay Area Native community. He teaches American Indian studies courses at San Francisco State University and the College of Marin. As a dancer and educator he has performed throughout the United States, and he has taken his Native dance group on tour to France. He was also nominated for the prestigious Isadora Duncan Dance Award as a soloist for his hoop dance presentation in the play "Sun Dagger Solstice" and again for visual design at the Ethnic Dance Festival.

Hector Kaiwai

Hector Kaiwai has an academic background in Māori Studies and Music. His Master’s thesis explored the historical role that Kapa Haka, as a medium for innovation, creativity, agency and change, has played in the sustainability of Māori culture and identity. Hector has also written a number of book chapters on the subject of Kapa Haka and was an adviser for a recently completed PhD that looked at the educational meanings of Kapa Haka (Māori performing arts) in a broader socio-educational contexts in today’s Aotearoa New Zealand. Hector also has an extensive and diverse background in health, education, and social justice research and evaluation, particularly in the design and development of culturally responsive programmes and outcome frameworks.

Hinewehi Mohi

Hinewehi Mohi (Ngāti Kahungunu/Ngai Tūhoe) is well known for the controversy caused when she decided to sing the New Zealand national anthem in te reo Māori before an All Blacks International rugby match in England in 1999, creating historical change. Hinewehi released her debut single Kia U in 1992. Oceania’s album release in 1999 yielded the highly successful single Kotahitanga integrating te reo Māori with popular contemporary dance beats. Hinewehi Mohi established Auckland's Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre after seeing how music helped her severely disabled daughter Hineraukatauri, who has cerebral palsy.

Jani Wilson

Jani lives in Whakatāne and belongs predominantly to Ngāti Awa, Ngā Puhi and Ngāti Hine. She is the inaugural Māori Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the School of Art & Design at AUT, completed all of her University studies in Film, TV & Media Studies at the University of Auckland and studied vocals/drama at performing arts school. Her PhD thesis, 'Whiripapa: Tāniko, Whānau & Kōrero-based Film Analysis' (2012), develops tools for Māori and Pacific Islander students in film studies to engage more deeply and meaningfully with the discipline, by encouraging the use of mahi-toi as theoretical, practical, and visual frameworks. In her spare time Jani composes and performs competitive kapahaka (Ngāi Taiwhakaea), and she is a diligent kapahaka and netball māmā at Te Kura o Te Pāroa, thanks to her 12-year-old daughter, Grace.

Junior Tana

Ka mimiti te puna i Taumārere, ka toto te puna i Hokianga, ka toto te puna i Taumārere, ka mimiti te puna i Hokianga, ko Ngāpuhi kōwhao rau e mihi ake nei, tēnā koutou katoa.

Junior has been working in the education sector for the past ten years. He has taught at the University of Canterbury, Te Kaupapa Whakaora Alternative Education, Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, and is currently the Academic Advisor for Ngā Mana Whakairo a Toi: Bachelor of Māori Performing Arts programme delivered by Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. Junior completed his Masters of the Arts in Te Reo Māori in 2012 and is a tutor for one of the senior Kapa Haka in Christchurch, Ngā Manu a Tāne Māori Club. He has an interest in seeing whether key messages expressed in composition are being embodied in everyday life.

Kerrie-Anna Tana

Mai i te kāhui maunga o Ruapehu, e rere mai te awa tipua o Whanganui. Tū mai rā ko Te Ati Haunui a Paparangi, ko Ngāti Tuera e pōhiri mai rā.

Kei tō taku māmā taha, ka tū au i taku puke o Mātītī, ka titiro ki te awa o Waioweka, ko taku iwi ko Te Whakatōhea, taku hapū ko Ngāti Ira.

Kerrie-Anna graduated from the University of Canterbury in 2009, with a Bachelor of the Arts double majoring in te reo Māori and Political Science. Since graduating, she has worked as the Māori liaison officer and Māori Information Librarian for the Christchurch City Libraries. She is currently a lecturer for Ngā Mana Whakairo a Toi: Bachelor of Māori Performing Arts programme delivered by Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. She is currently an active senior member of the Christchurch based senior Kapa Haka, Ngā Manu a Tāne Māori Club. She hopes this presentation will inspire wahine to poi with confidence and grace, thus resulting in strong wahine who can stand tall as mana wahine.

Kiri Dell

Currently studying a PhD on the competitive advantage of Māori tribal business, Kiri is investigating ways to best manage Maori collective assets. Kiri is also an entrepreneur, owing and operating Haka International, a Maori performance specialist group. Her entrepreneurial energies now focus on unlocking the potential of Maori lands through commercialising land based products. She has two kids, a proud mother, poet, writer, blogger and social media fiend, who rarely goes a day without coffee!

Maree Sheehan

Maree Sheehan (Ngati Maniapoto-Waikato, Ngati Tuwharetoa) is a lecturer at Auckland University of Technology with the faculty of Maori and Indigenous development. She is academic convenor for Applied Media and Cooperative Education. She also lectures in Culture and Society and International Noho Marae. Maree graduated with a Bachelor of Arts double major in English and Music from Massey University and a Postgraduate diploma in Maori Development and Masters in Philosophy from AUT. Maree an accomplished singer-songwriter and producer who has been involved in the New Zealand music industry for more than twenty years. Recently she released her second album ‘Chasing the Light’, which debuted at number 9 on the New Zealand Top 20 Charts. She has had similar successes with her songs ‘Past to the Present’ and ‘Kia tu Mahea’ which featured in the soundtrack for the iconic Kiwi film Once Were Warriors. Maree has mentored groups such as Nesian Mystik and continues to work with many artists, recently writing and producing XFactor duo L.O.V.E. She has spent several years spent working behind the scenes – writing and producing songs for television and film and penning tracks for others. Maree is a certified full member of both APRA and AMCOS.

Mark Hamilton

Mark is Senior Lecturer in World Stages at Regent’s University London. He first studied at the University of Birmingham, and then with Priya Srikumar, his teacher of bharatanatyam (South Indian Classical dance). He worked closely with Mika for ten years. Mark’s doctorate, awarded by the University of Canterbury (NZ), explored the interface of the martial arts and dance in Aotearoa, India and China. Elaborating on this work, his research explores the possibility of transcultural principles for performance training and the socio-political tensions of intercultural practices. His current projects centre on asking how performance arts seeded from the ancient Indian treatise of the Natya Sastra might best play a suitable and significant role in UK HEIs. His studio teaching is a synthesis of the European practices of Rudolf Laban, Jerzy Grotowski and Roy Hart, with principles from Māori performance and that of the Indian region of Kerala. In addition to teaching from foundation to masters levels at RUL, Mark is a member of The Study Society which promotes the study of Sufi Mevlevi Turning (Whirling Dervishes). He is also supporting the strategic reorganisation of three London-based practices – Dr Nadine George’s voice teaching, Shane Shambu’s dance drama and SoundBoxed’s immersive club-space shows.

Mika

Mika has starred as the opening act for Grace Jones in New York City, he has entertained His Royal Highness Prince Charles at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, and his performance in the Oscar-winning film The Piano shocked audiences around the globe. In an era of repetitive pop culture, Mika is a rare commodity – a truly original New Zealand Māori artist – and an entertainer with three decades of innovative work spanning stage, film, television, fashion and music. With a large international fan base, Mika is in high demand to perform in Aotearoa and abroad, touring his critically acclaimed live shows to seven Edinburgh Festivals, and to New York, London, Tokyo and beyond. He has recorded seven albums in te reo Māori and English and is an APRA Maioha Award nominee. He has appeared in over twenty television series and specials – from TVNZ classics Shark in the Park and Shortland Street, to his own Qantas Award nominated Mika Haka Kids and Ka Life for Māori Television. Throughout his broadly rewarding career, Mika has inspired and educated new generations of Māori and Pacific Island artists and performers – a multi-talented ‘tribe’ that includes actors, dancers, singers and musicians, visual artists and fashion designers. His artistic achievements stand proudly alongside his philanthropic work as kaitiaki of the Mika Haka Foundation, a charity organisation committed to keeping young New Zealanders active and healthy through physical culture and the performing arts.

Moana Manipoto

Moana Manipoto’s (Ngati Te Rangiita, Tuhirangi-Ngati Wahiao) music career spans over the last 25 years, encompassing a truly unique expression of mātaurangā Māori. Moana is considered one of the most important voices in New Zealand music, long acknowledged for having pushed the boundaries of Māori music, she is a self-confessed political commentator.

Naomi Herewini-Houia

Tahia te marae! Tahia te marae!
Uia te manuhiri me ko wai? Me ko wai?
Ko Te Kuti, Ko Te Wera, ko Te Haua
Ko Apanui ko Apanui

Ko te poupou tuatahi, ko Te Haraawaka me Hikarukutai
Ko te poupou tuarua, ko Tutawake, Rongomaihuatahi, Matekitātahi
Ko te poupou tuatoru, ko Hinetekahu, ko Te Ehutu, ko Kaiaio, me Kahurautao
Ko te poupou tuawha, ko Maruhaeremuri, ko Pararaki, Kauaetangohia, Ngunguruoterangi e

I tipu ake ai au i te korowai aroha o ōku kaumātua o Te Whānau a Apanui. He herenga ōku ki a Waikato, ki a Ngāti Kahungunu, ki a Ngāti Manawa, ki a Ngāti Awa hoki. Ko tōku ao, ko te ao haka. Mutu ana te kura tuarua i haere au ki Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato ki te ako i Te Reo. I riro i a au tētahi tūranga kaiako reo Māori mō Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, kātahi i whai au i te tohu kaiako kura tuatahi mai i Te Wānanga o Raukawa. I waimaire ahau ki tētahi tūranga kaiako ki Te Kura Mana Māori o Maraenui ki Te Whānau a Apanui. Nā wai rā, nā wai rā i whiwhi au i taku mahi hei kaiwhakaako mō te hōtaka o Ngā Mana Whakairo a Toi ki Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi. Mai i taku tamarikitanga, ko te haka, ko te poi, ko te waiata, ko Ngā mahi-ā-rēhia, ko te marae tōku kai i te ao i te pō. I tū au hei kaihaka mō Te Kapa o Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato me Tūranga Wāhine, Tūranga Tāne. He kaihaka au ināianei mō tōku kapa whakatipu a Te Whānau a Apanui He kākāno ahau i ruia mai i ōku kaumātua.

Robert Pouwhare

Robert Pouwhare is Tūhoe and a fluent speaker of the Ngāti Haka dialect. He is a Māori language revivalist and has been politically active for forty years agitating for the retention, maintenance and survival of the Māori reo and tikanga. He was recruited by Ngā Tamatoa and Te Reo Māori Society in the 1970s to apply for a television producer/directors course with the state broadcaster and subsequently was part of a team that introduced the first dedicated Māori television programme Koha in 1980. The political agenda of these groups was to force the government by way of a petition, demanding the inclusion of Māori language into the education system and to target broadcasting with the view of setting up a separate television channel. Over the past decades Robert has produced and directed hundreds of hours of Māori language television programmes for state and Māori Television. He is dedicated to language revitalisation and continues to conceptualise new ways to engaging young Māori to learn the language through digital technology. His latest foray to inveigle young minds was the production of three apps aimed at increasing engagement of Māori children with literacy, numeracy and science. He is currently teaching at AUT in Māori media and Māori language.

Rosanna Raymond aka Sistar S'pacific

Sistar S’pacific aka Rosanna Raymond, an innovator of the contemporary Pasifika art scene as a long-standing member of the art collective the Pacific Sisters, and founding member of the SaVAge K’lub. Raymond has achieved international renown for her performances, installations, body adornment, and spoken word. A published writer and poet, her works are held by museums and private collectors throughout the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Raymond’s practice works with people, spaces and things to activate a dynamic relationship between them, to realise and reshape the ta-va duality. This is a choreographic process that extends beyond the frames of art, into both domestic routines and ritual protocols. It includes self-adornment and group enactments, activating space and collapsing time using the body and the genealogical matter. www.facebook.com/sistar.spacific

Pare Keiha

Pare Areta Keiha (QSO, MSC, PhD, MBA, MComLaw, FRSA, MInstD, MRSNZ) is Pro Vice Chancellor for Māori Advancement, Pro Vice Chancellor for Learning and Teaching and Dean of Te Ara Poutama, the Faculty of Māori and Indigenous Development, at Auckland University of Technology. He has an extensive background in the governance of public and private companies, has supported a number of Auckland based arts and culture charities and is currently chair of the Mika Haka Foundation.  He was honoured in the 2008 New Year’s Honours List when he was made a Companion of the Queen’s Service Order (QSO) for his services to business, education and Māori. He has contributed to nationally significant research agendas including as a member of the 2002 PBRF Working Group and the second PBRF Sector Reference Group. He was a member of the first three CoRE Fund committees of the Royal Society of New Zealand, responsible for establishing the New Zealand Centres of Research Excellence. He is currently a member of the board of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, the Māori CoRE hosted by Auckland University, and of the FIET board hosted by Massey University. His present academic pursuits include mobile and digitally based solutions for enhanced teaching and learning, corporate governance, competition law and policy, intellectual property law, and Māori and Pacific development. His tribal affiliations lie with the principle tribes of Turanga (Gisborne), specifically Te Whānau-a-Taupara o T’Aitanga-a-Māhaki, and Rongowhakaata, and he is a trustee of the Te Whānau-a-Taupara Trust Board.

Sharon Mazer

Sharon Mazer earned her PhD at Columbia University. She is Associate Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Auckland University of Technology. Perhaps best known for her work on popular performance, including her book Professional Wrestling: Sport and Spectacle (Mississippi 1998), her current research focuses on diverse aspects of theatre and performance in Aotearoa New Zealand. Recent publications include articles and reviews in The Journal of Dramatic Theory & Criticism, Performance Research, Antipodes, Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Australasian Drama Studies and Cultural Sociology. Forthcoming: The Intricate Art of Actually Caring . . . and other New Zealand Plays (Seagull Books 2016), the first critically framed anthology to bring together plays by Māori, Samoan and Pākehā writers; and Mātiro: Look Inside, the life and times of gay Māori performance artist, Mika. She is on the editorial boards of Performance Paradigm and Theatre Annual.

Sophie Williams

Kia ora my name is Sophie Williams (Ngāpuhi, Tūhourangi Ngāti Wāhiao), I am a senior member of Hawaiki TŪ - Haka Theatre Company, kaihaka performer for my whanau rōpū Tūhourangi Ngāti Wāhiao. I am currently a graduate teaching assistant at The University of Auckland, Dance Studies Programme where I co-teach papers such as Pacific Contemporary dance, Māori contemporary performance, dance and culture. I am also in the midst of my final year of my PhD, exploring Indigenous dance artists’ narratives and experiences in relation to their practices and understandings of whakaaro Māori within contemporary dance and theatre spaces. I am deeply passionate and interested about performing arts, education, and research within both educational, institutional, theatre contexts and how Indigenous practices, values and beliefs are carried into such spaces.

Sophronia Smith

o Wairarapa, Kahungunu ki Wairarapa, Rakaipaaka, Rongomaiwahine I am a singer, performer, song writer, composer and documentary maker and have won national and international awards for these gifts. I am a passionate Social Work adult educator and researcher, and explore song, film, movie, and performance as pedagogy when exploring issues such as power, mana motuhake, bi-cultural-ism, race, and inter-generational trauma and healing. I currently work for Te Wānanga o Aotearoa in the role Kaihāpai Rangahau and support staff engaged in rangahau which includes MA, PhD, iwi rangahau, publications etc. I am enrolled in a creative PhD at Waikato University entitled “Voices from the future speaking to the past: Decolonizing western constructions of the female heroine through honouring, affirming and revitalizing stories of Tuawahine from Rangitane o Wairarapa and Kahungunu ki Wairarapa”.

Te Kāhautū Maxwell

Te Kāhautū Maxwell descends from the iwi of Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Porou, Te Whakatōhea, Ngāi Tai and Te Whānau-ā-Apanui. He is the Te Whakatōhea representative on the Tekau-mā-rua of Kīngi Tūheitia and at an early age was recognised as an elder of his people, assuming his role on the paepae kōrero. He sits on many boards, most notably Te Waka Toi / Creative New Zealand. He is currently a Pūkenga Matua and Pou Tikanga in the University of Waikato’s School of Māori and Pacific development. His research interests focus on Māori Religion, Te Haahi Ringatū, Karakia, Ngā Mōteatea, Building Cultural Capital, Tangihanga, Te Reo Māori, Kapa Haka, Composition, Toi Māori, Māori Literature, Māori Prophets and Māori Prophecy. He has been the recipient of many awards, including: Ngarimu VC & 28th (Māori) Battalion Memorial Doctoral Scholarship; 2010 Inaugural award for Sustained Excellence in Teaching in a Kaupapa Māori Context, AKO AOTEAROA National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence; and 2013 APRA Silver Scroll Maioha Award – recognising excellence in contemporary Māori music and to acknowledge waiata in, or strongly featuring Te Reo Māori. He is the tutor of Opōtiki-mai-tawhiti Kapa Haka which has consistently made the finals at Te Matatini and came second at Te Matatini in 2015. More importantly, he is a prolific composer of Māori song and dance, both traditional and contemporary.

Te Rita Papesch

Dr. Te Rita Bernadette Papesch is of Waikato-Maniapoto, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Whakaue and Czech descent. She was born and raised in Pirongia, in a family of ten siblings, by her parents and maternal grandfather. Her family encouraged her to pursue education and a musical career which began with studying classical piano and singing. She gave birth to seven children who became her focus in life. This meant a change in direction to studying Māori music under the guidance of her family, Canon Wi Te Tau Huata, Dr. Hirini Melbourne and Dr. Timoti Kāretu, plus many others. From 1970 onwards Kapa Haka became her passion and she now sits as the matriarch, sometimes composer and tutor, to her children and grandchildren’s Kapa Haka group, Te Haona Kaha. Most of her working life has been in the field of education in the secondary and tertiary sectors. Her PhD was centred on the role of Kapa Haka in creating a modern Māori identity, and she currently lectures in the Master of Applied Indigenous Knowledge degree at Te Wānanga o Aotearoa at Mangakōtukutuku Campus in Hamilton.

Te Taepa Kameta

“Anga mai ō koutou whatumanawa ki te Temepara te puna wairua o Ihoa O Ngā Mano”

Tū kau te titiro, te tara ki Matawhau! Ko Rehua koe! Tōia mai ngā waka ki uta ki te oneroa I Te Onepungapunga, I Te Punawhakareia a Rākeiao ki te roro o tōku tūpuna o Uenuku-mai-Rarotonga, ko Pikiao te iwi, ko Pikiao te tangata tū tārewa ki te rangi.

I whānau mai au ki te ingoa ‘Te Taepa Kameta’ o te whānau Kameta nō roto mai o Ngāti Te Rangiunuora, hapū o Ngāti Pikiao ki Te Onepungapunga, ki Te Rotoiti kite-a-Ihenga Ariki ai Kahu, takiwā ki Te Rotorua-nui-ā-Kahumatamomoe, Te Arawa waka, Te Arawa wānanga, Te Arawa tangata.

I tipu mai au i raro i ngā paparahi o ōku tūpuna mātua, i whāngaia ki ngā kai i mekere iho, he karakia, he kōrero, he waiata, he mōteatea taku kai i te ao, he moemoeā taku kai i te pō.
Ka pakeke mai au, ka mahue ake i te kāinga ka hūnuku atu ki Te Pā o Ratana ki reirā noho tonu atu ai. E rua aku pōtae e mau nei i ahau, he pouako i te Kapa Haka o Te Reanga Morehu o Ratana, ka tahi, ka rua, he pou o te Haahi, arā, he Āpōtoro Wairua o Te Haahi Ratana.
Tekau mā rima tau ā mohoa nei ahau e noho nei ki wēnei tūranga, e wawata noa ana kia tutuki pai ngā mahi i manakohia e ōku mātua tūpuna, matua nei ko te reo, inā hoki te kōrero a Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana, “Kia mau ki tō reo e te iwi, he reo reka ki a Ihoa”.

Valance Smith

Valance Smith has performed haka and waiata all his life. He attended Hato Petera College where his passion for Māori performing arts was ignited, later joining senior kapa haka groups where he learnt from many authorities of haka, waiata and weaponry. While studying at The University of Auckland, he tutored ‘Te Whānau o Waipapa’ (1999-2006), leading the group to three Auckland Regional Kapa Haka Competition campaigns for which he composed original items including whakaeke, waiata tira, waiata a ringa, poi and haka. Valance has judged at the ASB Polynesian Festival for secondary schools and at the Te Ahurea Kapa haka competitions. He gained a Bachelor of Arts, with a double major in Māori Studies and Māori Media, and a Master of Arts in the Department of Māori Studies, from the University of Auckland in 2003. In 2014, Valance completed a PhD in Māori Development, at AUT. His exegesis, titled ‘Ka tangi te tītī, ka tangi te kākā, ka tangi hoki ahau’, discusses the role of contemporary Māori music in promoting te reo Māori. For his PhD he composed, performed and produced six original waiata. The process of waiata composition and performance, and its potential to empower communities is central to his presentation, and fuels his enthusiasm to being a part of Ka Haka 2016.