What you need to know about Te Matatini 2025 - the 'Olympics of Kapa Haka'

It's one of biggest events on the calendar for te ao Māori and Te Matatini is back in 2025 bringing the best of haka and waiata from around Aotearoa and Australia.

New Plymouth/Ngāmotu and the people of Te Kāhui Maunga (Taranaki/Whanganui) will play hosts to the festival this year.

It can be hard to sell just how important Te Matatini is to te ao Māori, festival organisers estimate the event will bring 70,000 people to Taranaki and another 1.8 million live viewers.

And accommodation for the week-long festival is effectively sold out (or will cost you an arm and a leg) anywhere north of Whanganui.

What is Te Matatini?

Te Matatini - the 'Olympics of Kapa Haka' - is the biennial Māori performing arts competition.

Te Matatini began life in 1972 as the Polynesian Festival, at the inaugural festival in Rotorua seventeen kapa haka performed alongside six Polynesian groups representing Samoa, the Cook Islands and Tokelau.

The festival has gone through many name changes over the years. For many years it was known as Aotearoa Traditional Māori Performing Arts Festival, before becoming Te Matatini, meaning 'the many faces,' in 2004.

Te Matatini celebrated 50 years of Kapa Haka in 2022, with the release of an album of classic and modern waiata from across the festival's first five decades, and a book 'He Tau Makuru' charting the festival's history with detailed recollections and accounts from each festival.

Pukekura/Bowl of Brooklands in New Plymouth will serve as the atamira, the stage for Te Matatini in 2025.

You might recognise the stage from the annual WOMAD festival and this year it will be filled with the sound of waiata, haka and the beat of the poi.

The festival always starts with the huge pōwhiri by the host. It is always a show of the hosts' uniqueness, tribute to their rich history in the area and no doubt Te Kāhui Maunga, the peaks of Mount Taranaki, would be a key factor.

The four days of preliminary competition starts on Tuesday 25 February. There are four pools Te Ihu, Te Haumi, Te Kei and Te Awa.

The 12 finalists, the top three from each pool, will be announced on the evening of Friday 28 February. They will have to perform for a second time on the final day on Saturday 1 March.

Te Matatini o Te Kāhui Maunga 2025 will be broadcast live on TVNZ 2 and live streamed on TVNZ+, with catch-up viewing available on TVNZ+. Viewers can also watch live on Whakaata Māori and online at Māori+.

The festival cycles around the regions of Aotearoa, with the next festival to be held in Te Tauihu (Nelson/Malborough) in 2027.

Who is competing at Te Matatini?

There are 55 groups that have earned a spot this year - by far the most groups to ever compete at a single festival and 10 more than competed in Tāmaki Makaurau in 2023.

So many groups qualified last year that an extra day of competition was added to accommodate the increase.

The groups came from Te Matatini's thirteen regions, 12 in New Zealand and one for Australia.

Groups must have earned qualification at one of the regional competitions held the year before Matatini. The kapa haka performing cycle alternates between regionals and nationals every year.

The number of groups that earn a qualification spot depends on how many compete at the regional competitions.

If between two and four groups perform at the regionals one group will qualify. The ratio of qualifiers increases gradually with the number of competing groups. If 21 or more groups compete then six of those groups would qualify. Six is the maximum number of groups that can qualify from a single region.

Each group must consist of no less than 24 performers and no more than 40 on stage during the performance.

Each of the 55 qualifying groups would have been in wānanga (practice) for the past several months, composing, choreographing, refining and perfecting their performance.

Once they enter the stage, they have less than thirty minutes to make their mark in front of the judges.

What makes a Matatini performance?

On the national stage groups have 25 minutes for each performance or 'bracket.'

Going overtime means being docked points, and when the margin of victory is often a single or even half a point, that can be a very costly mistake.

Brackets are made up of seven 'items', six compulsory and one optional.

The compulsory items are:

• Whakaeke (entrance)
• Mōteatea (traditional chant)
• Waiata-ā-ringa (action song)
• Poi
• Haka
• Whakawātea (exit).

The optional item is the Waiata tira or choral, if performed the Waiata tira happens before the Whakaeke right at the beginning of the bracket.

Groups have a maximum of four minutes to perform the Waiata tira on top of time for the rest of the bracket.

While some items, such as the Mōteatea stick closely to traditional Māori performance, others, especially the Whakaeke and Whakawātea, offer much more opportunity for experimentation.

Famously in 2017 members of Te Iti Kahurangi entered the stage on all fours mooing like cows, their Whakaeke 'He Kau Kawana' composed by Brad Totorewa re-told the history of land confiscation by Governor George Grey.

Over the years stage choreography, props and costumes have all been incorporated into the performances. In 2013 Te Arawa group Kataore erected a full-scale meeting house and had one performer climb to the top.

How do you win?

The first four days of Te Matatini are set aside for preliminary competition.

Each day serves as one competition pool and only three groups qualify from each pool, so groups are effectively only competing with other groups performing on the same day.

Groups are judged on their performance in the six compulsory items, plus the quality of te reo. The three groups with the highest marks on each day advance to the finals.

The finalists will be announced on the evening of Friday 28 February. Fifty-five groups will be cut to just 12 finalists in a brutal cull.

All 12 finalists compete again on Saturday 1 March in Te Matangirua - finals day - with a clean slate meaning marks and placings from the pool competitions do not carry over into the finals.

This has led to some surprise winners at times, such as in 2013 when Te Iti Kahurangi were the highest placing team in the preliminary rounds winning many of the items, but on finals day it was Te Waka Huia who came away as champions.

It gave teams that made the finals a chance to lift their performance and clinch the title.

The winner takes home the supreme title of Toa Whakaihuwaka, the Ngāpo Pimia Wehi Duncan Mcintyre Trophy and bragging rights for the next two years.

The winning group also represents Aotearoa at events around the world. The 2023 winners, Te Whānau a Apanui, represented Aotearoa at the Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC) last year.

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