Haka! Speaking With Every Move

If you think that haka is just about a stirring start to a rugby game, check out Haka! an exhibition at the Auckland Centre of the National Library at the bottom of Stanley Street.

Haka! gives New Zealanders and visitors an opportunity to increase their understanding that haka extends beyond the sports field and is deeply embedded in Māori culture, language, and identity. Haka brings visitors on to a marae; celebrates a wedding; marks death at a tangi; delivers a message to the authorities; recalls an important event; challenges an opponent. Where something important is to be said, haka helps say it.

Haka! shows photographs from the rich collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library alongside some great film footage and audio from a range of sources to show the tradition of haka and its continuing central importance in today’s world.

Images of the Maori Battalion haka for the King of Greece in Egypt and the 1905 “The Originals” All Blacks performing before a test against England, contrast with contemporary shots of haka from the modern All Blacks and the winning 2011 Matatini kapa haka team in full flight.

Haka experts add their insights to the exhibition. Professor Tīmoti Kāretu explains haka as “a message, born of the soul, spoken by the mouth and given full expression to by the body.”

National Library Services to Schools have developed an accompanying free schools programme, which can be tailored to meet the needs of students from year 0 to 13. The programme invites students and teachers to engage more deeply with National Library collections, learn research and information skills and develop their knowledge and understanding of New Zealand heritage and haka. Schools are invited to contact the National Library Auckland centre to find out more.

Haka! begins in The Window at the National Library in Auckland on September 5 this year and concludes April 6, 2012. The Window is at 8 Stanley Street, Parnell, and is open from 10am-6pm, Monday to Friday. It is free to enter and all are welcome. The exhibition is part of the REAL New Zealand Festival.