It's a Yellow Out

Wellington Phoenix host the Newcastle Jets in what amounts to an A-League Quarter-final on Sunday 7 March.

The Yellow Fever have called upon the city, nay the very country, to show its true colours and go yellow for the game. With less than 5,000 tix left to sell the Nix final home game of the season will be a scorcher.

Unfortunately as per my previous post I'll be knee deep in artiness, taking Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea out to the curious theatre at Southward Car Museum in Paekakariki. Paekakariki means valley of the green parrot- Ill make time in my schedule to ask Land Information NZ to temporarily change the name to Paekowhai- the valley of yellow!

I'm hoping that since this company is British they'll be partial to a bit of football, and may tolerate me tuning to Radio Sport in the Greenroom, and perchance the quiet bits of the show will be punctuated by my cries of joy when Greenacre slots home the winner.

I have had nary a chance to ruminate upon matters football for the past week, missing opportunites to post about the Phoenix beating Perth, Ryan Nelsen's dodgy knee, the All Whites strip being blacked out and all manner of other sundry odd spots.

But yesterday I saw some awesome athleticism, namely the man and his digger at Waitangi Park, and the Monks from Sutra perform a monkey dance on a steel pole. This was after I had performed two Haka Powhiri- one at dawn to welcome the Festival artists and a special Haka Powhiri on stage at the St James Theatre to welcome the cast of Sutra. The Monks were very gracious and said through their translator "your dance [the haka] is like a Kung Fu to us."

Here is the proof:
Before yesterday I had only ever performed one Haka before- as a weedy teenager on Niue Island before our 7th form Geography Class Rugby team got pounded into the ground by the Niue High School 1st XV. (On the Niue national News that night it was the lead story, and we were called the Rotorua Boys High 1st XV!)

A Haka is an intense experience- drawing up all manner of mana and wairua from the Earth below, and entwining host and guest in an ancient, energetic bond. And then you want to smash them.

IF it was done right, and that is a BIG if, i wouldn't mind seeing the All Whites take a leaf out of the All Blacks book and summon the warrior chief Te Rauparaha before taking on the Italians!

On second thoughts maybe not, have some monkey pole dancing & general easts meets west craziness courtesy of Sutra instead: