Yeah, it has been crazy busy!

Day 6: Pepeha Day

Today was designed around preparation for our trip to Kohunui Marae. We worked on our Waiata, and talked about the pepeha of the song. So, a pepeha is basically a genealogy that connects to your family as well as the area you are from. When you introduce yourself with a mihimihi, you share your pepeha, so that people can find connections to you.

We then sat around working out where we were from, where our mountains were (maunga) our rivers (awa) and lakes (moana).

Then we challenged the students to create a visual pepeha to show who they were and where they are from.

At the end of the day we all shared our pepeha in small groups and made plans for our trip to the Marae… and went over the waiata again.

Day 7: RAIN!

Yes, the best laid plans of mice and men. We had to cancel our trip to the Marae because of heavy rains and flooding. However, we made the most of the day. Today we looked at what we did on Friday at Cobblestones, and had the students prepare their sharing of their works to each other. The visual artists retired to their spaces to work, and the performers moved into rehearsal mode.

Changing from site specific works to staged works was a bit of a challenge, but they did amazingly well. They organised themselves to have sound, lighting, MC’s, a running order, stage managers and everything. It was impressive. Then we look a studio tour of the art rooms to see how they were progressing.

So we have had to push our marae trip to Thursday. But that’s okay.