UW News

February 9, 2006

Whale dancers

New Zealanders (from left) Te Rau Huia Ngata-Kutia, Derek Lardelli, Patrick Takoko and Wayne Ngata, on the right, perform part of a traditional “haka” dance at the Burke Museum Friday — one of the demonstrations that accompanied the opening of the exhibit about Maori weaving, Toi Maori: The Eternal Thread. The dance dramatizes the Paikea legend of a chief who came to the land on the back of a whale, the story on which the popular movie The Whale Rider was based. The three also were walking, and dancing, exhibits of “ta moko,” the Maori art of skin carving, or tattooing. The Eternal Thread continues at The Burke until May 29.