September 02, 2022
Split venues keep high school kapa haka comps on tract
This year’s secondary schools’ Ngā Kapa Haka Kura Tuarua o Aotearoa national competition will be held this year for two days and in five different rohe.
Performances will be livestreamed, with judging taking place a couple days later.
Tournament kaikorero Harley Emery says the tournament was broken up because of concern any shift in Covid-19 settings could impose additional financial and other costs on schools and performers.
“There’s a cohort of year 12 students that have never, ever stood in a national competition and had we been cancelled they would never have had the opportunity to stand. People are looking at the Covid thing and that is obviously in our faces but there are so many issues as to why we have done it this way,” she says.
Ms Emery says by splitting the competition, rohe who have never hosted a national competition get a chance to welcome manuhiri.