Turuhira Hare

Turuhira Hare
Occupation	Māori Performing Arts Mentor and Educationalist

Turuhira Hare (c. 1957) is a Māori performing arts exponent, composer, and educationalist. She is the daughter of the late Māori kuia and prominent Tūhoe leader Te Uruhina McGarvey. Turuhira is of Tūhoe and Te Arawa tribes, and is also of English and Scottish descent. She is renowned for her life-time contribution to Māori education and performing arts - and has been an active and leading figure for her Iwi, Tūhoe for nearly more than three decades.

Turuhira became the head tutor in the early 1980’s for one of Ngāi Tūhoe’s earliest founded Kapa Haka groups, the Ruatoki Māori Cultural Group. She has since then followed and continued the use of traditional teachings and customs of her Iwi, and sustained it in her Kapa Haka (group).

Turuhira has worked with Māori educators Kaa and Tāwhirimātea Williams. They worked at the Ruatoki school, and tutored the Primary and Secondary Kapa Haka groups. She was the Deputy Principal at the Te Wharekura o Ruatoki school, and has been a member of the Ruatoki school Board of Trustees. She is an active Kaiwhakawā (Kapa Haka Judge) judging at Primary, Intermediate, and Secondary school Kapa Haka competitions.

She has also been a judge for the Te Matatini National Kapa Haka festival since 2007. She is known to have held the regional title of best female leader multiple times, at the Senior Mātaatua Kapa Haka Competition during her prime. In February 2009, she won the title of the best female leader of the Te Matatini Kapa Haka National competition. In an interview with Movie Producer Vincent Ward, Turuhira appeared in the 2008 documentary Rain of the Children.

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