Kingi Kiriona Photo: supplied
Kapa haka tutor and composer Kingi Kiriona believes in the law of attraction – if you put out passion for the Māori language, it will come back to you.
He talks about his foray into kapa haka and what he believes is his koha or gift to the Māori language.
As a college student, Kingi Kiriona showed flair for te reo Māori when he won both the Senior English and the Senior Māori sections at the National Manu Korero speech competition in 1998.
Since that time he has steadily grown into a formidable force in the Māori language and Māori performing arts.
This week, he was a first-time Maioha Award nominee at the APRA Silver Scroll Awards in Dunedin.
He was shortlisted for the award with Maisey Rika and Northland-based Heavy Metal band Alien Weaponry, who won for their song Raupatu.
As a descendant of Ngāti Kahungunu, Kingi was recently a guest speaker at the recent Māori language Symposium Te Reo Ki Tua.
He told that crowd that he doesn’t consider himself to be an expert in the language, but as a group they make a conscious effort to instil the language in its members.
Kingi Kiriona is the main tutor of Waikato based Kapahaka group, Te Iti Kahurangi. Photo: RNZ/Justine Murray
“We don’t claim to be reo experts, not at all… When people come to our kapa haka to be quite frank they don’t necessarily come to us to learn te reo…they come to share in our passion for kapa haka. But this doesn’t stop me from using this as a vehicle to teach them te reo.”
Kingi's Kapahaka group Te Iti Kahurangi was formed in 2000 and entered the highly theatrical Super 12 Kapahaka event in Gisborne.
From there they eventually entered the National Kapahaka Competition Te Matatini.
In the last few years, Te Iti Kahurangi won numerous awards for their song compositions there and consistently placed in the final day top nine pool.
Te Iti Kahurangi began as a group of friends and has grown to one of the top performing kapahaka groups in the country. Photo: RNZ/Justine Murray
Kingi, a former broadcaster and journalist with TVNZ and Māori Television, has written songs that delve into a range of issues including current affairs, Māori language and Māori media.
In 2009, his group won the award for Best Action Song inspired by feedback from Te Karere viewers about the depth of language used on the show.
“We received a letter from a Kaumatua, complaining about some of the words we were using at the time on screen, and it wasn’t just Scotty it was all of us. It's not that we disagreed with the letter, but it forced us into a position of evaluating actually are we being clear in our communication and are the words that we are using in the right context?”
At Te Matatini 2015 he composed a haka that challenged the content of Māori Television. The song was subsequently taken down from their website.
At this year’s Te Matatini he wrote Te Mātāwai about the inception of the new Māori language organisation and its appointees.
“When you’re in a group and you are singing waiata with these messages over and over again, well, you begin to attract... I believe in the law of attraction, you put it out you get it back. If you put out passion for te reo, you get it back.”
When it comes to the language of the 40-plus members of Te Iti Kahurangi, Kingi says 90 percent of members know how to speak te reo Māori and up to eighty percent of the practises and wananga are delivered in the Māori language.
