Sunday, April 5, 2009

2009 Maori Whangara Performing Arts Group at COEX Mall, New Zealand Exhibition

This weekend Julianne and I headed to Seoul to check out the cherry blossoms--and were again foiled by cool temperatures--argh!!!

A friend suggested that we head to COEX Mall to see the New Zealand exhibition that was taking place over the weekend.

We arrived just in time to see the Maori Whangara Performing Arts Group called "Te Kapa Haka o Whangara Mai Tawhiti."

They were AWESOME!

While I snapped away with my camera Julianne used my Flip Mino to video their performance. The quality is not bad (I'd recommend selecting HQ for "high quality" when you watch the video) considering my little video recorder isn't really meant for anything more than 10 feet away. We were standing at the back of the audience in front of the stage so the performance was a little out of range.


I don't have the time or energy tonight to edit the nearly 500 pics I took of the performance in order to do one of my usual blog picture essays . . . but I might try and put up more pics throughout the week.

I love the second guy from the left--he stole the show every time with his over the top gestures and facial expressions.

The women were also really good. I wish the performance had been longer.

And once again--the star of the show.

And just in case you weren't already totally pumped--here's another vid from youtube of another performance.




J

2 comments:

Paul Ajosshi said...

I know what you did last Saturday and have the picture to prove it....

http://ajosshi.blogspot.com/2009/04/maori-dances-and-kimchi-icecream.html

I'd be interested to see some more of your photos of the occasion.

Anonymous said...

Tena Koe J,

Hello my name is Solomon Blake from 'Te Kapa Haka o Whangara Mai Tawhiti." the 2nd guy from the left. I am glad you enjoyed the shows and I m sorry they weren't longer however that was out of our hands. I am writing to see if I can see the other pics of our team my email details are as follows ahikaa@hotmail.com.

By the way thanks for the generous comments on your blog, when we finally returned to New Zealand on April 10th my family were all talking about how I was the star of the show and was wondering how much did I pay someone to write those comments, I had no idea what they were talking about, but now i do, please feel free to contact me.

For your information the other haka video you have, the kids are tutored by my cousin and close friend who is also in our kapa haka group but was unavailable for the tour to South Korea.

Look forward to your response,

Soulman