Something unique

From NZ team

t yj'AORI cultural performances

V/l are usually classified as Poly- Y A nesian or South Pacific, but eir performance at Expo ’92 is said to developed into a style totally unique New Zealand thanks to Los aoris de Expo, a group of top Maori rformers put together following a ar-month nationwide search.

At the Brisbane Expo in 1988, they □ved literally to be showstoppers e day the crowd grew so large it aught pedestrian traffic to a stand-still d the stage had to close temporarily.

At Expo 92, visitors can see Maori

performances several times a day on a stage next to the giant rock face outside the New Zealand Pavilion. The rocks form a sea-cliff scene the size of a four storey building and represent Young Nick’s Head, the point where the British

explorer Captain James Cook first

sighted New Zealand. They are part of an animated scene which includes rock pools, simulated waves, model blowholes, sea spray, native New Zealand trees, and model seabirds moving and calling overhead.

Visitors to the Pavilion move through four separate theatres of discovery. They first board a 15th century sailing ship and travel as early European explorers, beneath a sky of fibre-optic stars. Upon “arrival” they are surrounded by the sights and sounds which met New

Zealand discovers and encounter life sized sculptures of the great Pacific

explorers including the Polynesian,

Kupe, the Spaniard, Mendana, and the Englishman, Cook.

Visitors are also treated to a recorded

“mini opera” performed on a giant

backdrop screen by the great New Zealand soprano, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, accompanied by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, a chil dren’s chorus, a Celtic folk band, Poly nesian drums, and a Maori haka (war dance) party.

The Pavilion also includes an exhi bition of ceramic art from 13 of New Zealand’s best ceramic artists and one cast-glass artist, and a theatre where visitors can sample or buy goods from sports clothing to wine and venison. □