Auckland’s Polyfest, the world’s largest secondary school Polynesian festival, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week.
This year’s event host, Western Springs College – Ngā Puna o Waiōrea, has a proud history of representing at the festival. It has been the defending champion of the Māori stage for the last six years running.
Tiakina Te Kare tutors Ngā Puna o Rehu, one of four Ngā Puna o Waiōrea kapa haka that compete across four divisions. She said it was a challenging job when she first started 10 years ago, but it was beautiful to see how much tauira have grown over the years and now thriving.
“It makes me feel grateful that I was part of the journey of theirs to be able to get to perform across all three rōpū, especially getting into [senior group] Ngā Puna o Waiōrea.”
She was one of a number of the school’s former students returning to tutor the next generation of haka performers. The school’s reputation in kapa haka has flourished over the past decade and Polyfest played a big part in providing a platform for development.
The event involved more than 70 schools represented across six stages – Māori, Samoa, Tonga, Niue, Cook Islands and Diversity – over four days.
It’s a far cry from its humble beginnings in 1976 where there were only four schools – Māngere College, Aorere College, Hillary College (now Sir Edmund Hillary College) and Seddon College (now Western Springs College – Ngā Puna o Waiōrea).
Ngā Puna o Rehu would use its performance to mark the 50th anniversary of Polyfest and the school’s participation in the event.
“The main kaupapa of our bracket is about Ngā Puna o Waiōrea, so our whakapapa, our hitori; and then our whakawātea is about celebrating the 50 years.”
Kianu Enoka-Rupapera tutored another of the school’s groups, Ngā Oho o Waiōrea and, like Te Kare, was once a student who performed at Polyfest.
“Polyfest, for me, definitely helped me grow as a performer, grow as a person, specially being here at Ngā Puna o Waiōrea.”
He said he owed a lot of what he learned from the experience to his own tutors. Now he was teaching a new wave of kapa haka performers and encouraged young people to “just jump in and have a jam”.
This year’s theme for Polyfest would pay tribute to the past five decades: He oha nō tua, he taonga tuku iho! It is Legacy – a treasure handed down.
The event would be launched on Tuesday with a flag-raising at dawn and pōwhiri later in the morning. Performances would begin the following day.
Glossary
tauira – students
kaupapa – theme, topic, subject, cause
whakapapa – genealogy
hitori – history
whakawātea – exit item (in kapa haka context)
