A First for Timaru Girls' High School!

On Saturday the 16th of March, eleven of our Timaru Girls' High School students took part in Christchurch's Polyfest for the first time, alongside Timaru's four other secondary schools; Timaru Boys High School, Craighead Diocesan School, Roncalli College, and Mountain View High School, with all the schools combined, we represented Timaru as a cohort.

Six weeks prior to the big day, the Tongan Society South Canterbury held endless practices going over our performance bracket with original choreography. Together the mothers and aunties came up with the designs for our Teunga and worked together to complete our costumes which took long tedious hours sometimes sewing late into the night.

With so much effort put into the costumes and choreography, the girls became determined to perfect our Tau'olunga and Lakalaka, dedicating our free time to practise together as well as independently.

When the big day arrived, we had an early start with all the performers catching a bus at 6:00 am, arriving in Christchurch at around 8:00 am. Since we were the 15th group performing, we occupied ourselves by visiting the food and craft stalls, participating in activities and watching the other performances until it was our turn to perform.

Our performance bracket was fifteen minutes, yet it only felt like two. We were all nervous at first, but as the crowd cheered us on, we were able to feel the Mafana. Once we stepped on stage the adrenalin kicked in and it was over in a heartbeat. We got through the performance smoothly and with cheer, ending our first Polyfest journey on a high note.