Te Waipounamu on tour.

Tu Tangata, Issue 5, 1 April 1982, Page 24

Te Waipounamu on tour.

Te Waipounamu Maori Girls College is currently on a concert tour of the North Island. The fifty strong concert group began the tour on the Waahi marae in the Waikato, and travels down the East Coast performing at marae along the way, with a final performance at Wellington’s Pipitea marae on Friday, April 16. The group’s led by Ngaitahu noble elder, Riki Te Maiharoa Ellison and Pura and Doe Parata, the present college administrators. Seen as a cultural education tour, the college will be performing and staying on host marae in the Waikato, RotoruaTakinga marae, Whakatane-Wairaka marae, Ruatoria-Uepohatu marae, Gisborne-Waihirere marae, WairoaTakitimu marae, Hastings-Waipatu

marae, Dannevirke-Aotea marae, Well-ington-Pipitea marae. Started in 1907, Te Waipounamu Maori Girls College in Christchurch is the only Maori school in the South Island. It’s the first time the college has come north on such a tour and they bring with them a high standard of performance. Last year the college group won the award for the outstanding performance at the South Island Cultural Competitions and they also gave a royal com-

mand performance for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in the Christchurch Cathedral. During the current tour the group will be the guest Maori group for the Maori Battalion reunion at Whakatane. The school has a fine tradition of scholastic and cultural achievement and amongst its tutors have been the late Weno Tahiwi of Wellington, and Te Whakahuihui Vercoe, the present Bishop of Aotearoa. The Wellington concert will be combined with the internationally famous Ngati Poneke Maori Club, and the nett proceeds will be presented to the new Ngati Poneke Wharenui, Pipitea marae. At every marae where the group stays, there’ll be such a fund-raising concert in a gesture of tohu Maori.