Editor Pick
Ko Tane
- April 7, 2006
- Rated 2 of 5 by
stomps from Houston, Texas
We were very excited about this section of the tour we took at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, a tour that cost $45NZ for both a Maori performance and a guided wildlife tour afterward. We had heard a lot about Maori cultural performances and thought it would be a very enriching experience.
However, we soon realized that the performances, often that go along with dinners, that people talk about are the ones on the North Island, generally around Rotorua, since there are many more Maori in the north. This performance very much had the ring of a high school play around it, with a bunch of people dressing up and reading lines. And I'm all for cultural diversity and whatnot, but out of all the high-school age kids on stage, all looked Maori except for one guy, who was maybe 6' 3", and very white. I'm glad that he's proud of his country's Maori heritage, but it seemed to make the performance all the more fake, since he obviously didn't belong.
Some parts were interesting, like seeing them do the haka and some of the songs, but a large part was rather corny, and we thought must be better done in places like Rotorua, since these dinners and performances are such a huge hit up there.
Afterwards, we got to walk through the "living Maori village," which was really just the performers standing around a few Maori meeting houses and performing tricks with things like poi. We got to try out the poi for ourselves, which were round balls on the end of long strings that the girls could make twirl in all sorts of ways. When we tried, we generally just ended up hitting someone or making everyone laugh. It definitely was fun to try though.
Overall, I was not highly impressed by this part of our tour, although I would definitely recommend the wildlife section, as noted in another review in my Christchurch journal. If you want to enjoy a real Maori cultural experience, I would definitely recommend doing so while still on the North Island.
From journal Christchurch - Crepes, Gardens, and Kiwis, Oh My!