Cultural consultation and a haka-derived opening phrase
A student choreographer who is Pākehā is making a five-minute contemporary work for a school arts festival. Her concept is 'challenge and response', and she wants to open with a 30-second phrase adapted from a haka she learned at a previous school's kapa haka practice. Two Māori students in the seven-dancer cast have whakapapa to different iwi. One has said she is uncomfortable with the phrase being used outside its context; the other has said she does not mind. The festival is three weeks away, and the choreographer has not contacted the source community. The teacher has advised her to 'just ask the Māori department'. The work is assessed against a criterion requiring 'integrity between concept and movement choices'. The choreographer is worried that removing the phrase will weaken the work's impact.
1. Advise the choreographer on whether to use the haka-derived phrase at the festival. Support your recommendation with reasoning about cultural protocols, the cast, and the assessment criterion.
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Recommendation: do not present the adapted haka phrase in its current form at this festival.
Reasoning:
- A haka is not a neutral movement vocabulary. It is a culturally located practice with whakapapa, tikanga, and protocols that vary between iwi and hapū. Learning a phrase at a previous school does not confer permission to re-present it in a new context, especially a competitive or assessment context.
- The disagreement between the two Māori students is not a tie to be broken by a vote. One student's discomfort is a signal that the use is contested; proceeding would place her in the position of appearing to endorse something she has said she is uncomfortable with. That is a relationship issue as much as an artistic one.
- 'Asking the Māori department' is a start, but a department is not the source community, and it should not be used as a rubber stamp. If consultation happens, it needs time, reciprocity, and a willingness to accept 'no'.
- The assessment criterion is 'integrity between concept and movement choices'. A borrowed phrase that cannot be ethically grounded weakens that integrity, even if it looks powerful.
Alternative: explore 'challenge and response' through movement structures that do not borrow culturally specific material - for example, two groups facing off in canon, a task where one dancer initiates and others answer, or a score based on breath and stamping that is abstract rather than appropriated. This can be more original and more defensible.
2. Analyse the relationship between cultural consultation and choreographic integrity in this case. Use the assessment criterion to support your analysis.
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Integrity is relational, not only aesthetic. A work has integrity when its movement choices are honest about where they come from and when the relationships that produced them are acknowledged. Consultation is therefore not an add-on to choreographic integrity; it is part of it.
- Truthfulness: if the programme note says the work explores 'challenge and response', but the most striking moment is a decontextualised haka, the work is relying on borrowed cultural power to do work the choreography has not earned. That is a gap between concept and movement.
- Accountability: consultation creates a relationship with the source community. It may result in permission, conditions, or refusal. Integrity means accepting the answer, not treating consultation as a formality.
- Craft: consultation can also improve the choreography. Understanding the protocols of a haka - who leads, how the group responds, where the power sits - might lead the choreographer to invent a response structure that is original and culturally literate rather than imitative.
- Risk: proceeding without consultation exposes the students, the school, and the festival to legitimate criticism, and it puts the Māori cast members in an unfair position.
Conclusion: the stronger artistic position is to build the work from a movement logic she can fully own, and to credit any cultural guidance she receives. The criterion is better satisfied by a coherent, ethically grounded concept than by an isolated 'powerful' moment.
3. Propose a process and timeline for the three weeks that addresses the cultural, artistic, and assessment pressures.
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Three-week process:
- Days 1–3 - pause and listen. Speak with the full cast, not just the two Māori students. Acknowledge that the phrase will not be used until guidance is received. Record concerns in writing. Do not ask the Māori students to resolve the issue for her.
- Days 4–7 - seek guidance. Contact the kapa haka lead or whānau associated with the source of the phrase, explain the concept, and ask whether the material can be used, on what conditions, and with what acknowledgement. Contact the school's Māori department for advice on process, not for permission. Set a clear deadline: if no guidance by day 8, proceed with the alternative.
- Days 8–14 - develop the alternative. Build the opening from a non-borrowed movement score: for example, a canon of stamp-and-breath, or a task where dancers must 'answer' a gesture without repeating it. Rehearse and film it for review.
- Days 15–18 - feedback. Show the new opening to the cast and, if they are willing, to Māori staff. Ask specifically whether anything reads as appropriation.
- Days 19–21 - finalise. Final rehearsals; write programme notes that credit any guidance. If permission was granted and conditions were set, follow them exactly.
Contingency: if guidance arrives late, it is better to keep the alternative and thank the source community than to swap back at the last minute.