‘Ka Haka: Empowering Māori performance’

‘Ka Haka: Empowering Māori performance’
You can take the girl out of the theatre but not theatre out of the girl.
‘Ka Haka: Empowering Performance’ brought together academics and artists worldwide to explore the whakapapa stored within Māori performance, both traditional and avant-garde.
I’m totally committed to a bicultural society, one enriched by ti tiriti and empowered by the work of Māori.
I understand what it is to be a minority.
The questions embedded in the Symposium were ‘what power does a kapa haka performer carry with them from stage to screen’, ‘what happens when the power is claimed by non-Māori’, ‘who is entitled to claim that power’, ‘how does music education lead young people to emancipation’, and ‘what is the role of the reviewer in responding to Indigenous performance?’
As a life-time performing artist/teacher/reviewer/critic I struggle with these questions for fear my responses will be inauthentic but instinct tells me whatever I learn will inform my practice and that will be acceptable.
Hearing te reo normalised has empowered me to use this in my practice.
‘Mana Wahine’ featured Moana Maniapoto and Hinewehi Mohi, pioneers of both popular and political music. Both are creating waiata in te reo as a way of reclaiming the language and expressing their identity ‘in a contemporary, non-anthropological way’. Maniapoto, always provocative, focuses on ‘mobilising togetherness’. Through defiance, courage, and a love of performance, she uses her music to reach out to everyone.
‘Ka Haka’ enabled me to observe and reflect on the contemporary use of orally transmitted narratives. Storytelling is critical to my pedagogy and te reo kōrero paki is sequentially different to that used in pakeha constructs. Metaphors differ and whakatauki have become an integral part of my practice. Moving in-and-out of ritual and ceremony enables a common language to be born through the power of collaboration and unity.
I am a staunch advocate for te reo and tikanga. In a world where equality often dies at the gates of privilege and entitlement, I am a drip of water on this mono-cultural rock. As
Hinewehi Mohi changed the world by singing our anthem in te reo at Rugby World Cup ‘99, I continue to use this learning in my practice, and watch the rock diminish.
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