May 22, 2023
Kapa haka putea compensation for past suppression
A Te Matatini judge says a Budget boost is a step towards righting a historical wrong.
Funding for the national Maori performing arts festival increased from under $3 million to $34 million over the next two years.
The organisation says 70 percent of the putea will go to the 12 rohe who will each decide how it will be used in their area.
Tamaki Kapa Haka chair Paora Sharples says Government has a responsibility to fund kapa haka.
“Our art form was once deemed barbaric, inappropriate and obsolete and incompatible with christian beliefs during colonisation. Much of it was replaced by harmonic singing of hymns. You come forward to now, kapa haka is being valued and resourced in a meaningful way equivalent to funding received by other colonial western art forms,” he says.
Mr Sharples says the extra putea is a win not just for te ao Maori but for Aotearoa New Zealand as a whole.