The refrain that sounds like someone else's
A secondary school kapa haka rōpū of 24 performers has six weeks until a regional competition in which each rōpū must present a whakaeke of no more than two minutes, followed by mōteatea, waiata-ā-ringa, poi and haka. Their tutor, a former regional champion, has written a new nine-minute haka to replace an item that no longer fits the group's kaupapa. The new item opens with a three-line refrain whose stress pattern and vowel sequence closely match the opening of a widely performed haka composed in the 1980s and still attributed to a named composer from another rohe. The tutor says the resemblance is 'just the beat' and that haka has always borrowed. Two senior students whakapapa to the 1980s composer's iwi and are uncomfortable. The kaitātaki tāne is 17 and has never led a new composition; the kaitātaki wāhine wants to add a poi section that the tutor says will 'soften' the item before the judges. The group must also cut two minutes from its programme.
1. Assess the resemblance between the new refrain and the 1980s haka. Which features would you compare, and what would make the borrowing acceptable or unacceptable?
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Treat the item as layers, not as a single thing: kupu (words), rangi (melody line), the nanao or entry, the rhythmic engine (stress pattern, takahi, patu), and the kaupapa the item serves.
A shared stress pattern is weak evidence on its own - haka across the motu share metre, and a beat cannot be owned. The resemblance becomes a live issue when three things line up: the same vowel sequence, the same structural position (opening entry), and audience recognition. If listeners from the other rohe hear their item in yours, the refrain is doing referential work whether or not the tutor intended it.
The decisive test is not 'did you borrow' but 'does the borrowed element carry whakapapa'. If the refrain names a tūpuna, a place or a deed, it is a claim, not a beat. A rhythm can be reworked; a name cannot be borrowed without permission.
Process: ask the two students what they hear, approach the composer's whānau and marae, and if permission is refused, change the engine - shift the beat, change the vowel sequence, enter on a different line - rather than swapping one word. Check the competition's originality clause, but let tikanga set the order of operations.
2. The group must cut two minutes. Recommend what to cut, with reasons, and identify what you would check first.
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First check the rules: if poi is a compulsory item, the poi cannot simply vanish, and the calculation changes.
Assuming it is not compulsory, the cut should solve more than one problem at once.
- The whakaeke is already capped at two minutes, so trimming it cannot yield two minutes. Its second refrain could go for roughly 30 seconds, which also reduces exposure of the contested motif - a useful side-effect.
- The new haka is the item with the least rehearsal time (six weeks) and the most contested material. Cutting its middle section risks breaking its structure and leaves the resemblance untouched. It is the wrong place to find two minutes.
- The new poi section has not been rehearsed and is the kaitātaki wāhine's proposal rather than an existing part of the item. Dropping it saves performance time and rehearsal load at once.
So: do not add the poi, and trim the whakaeke's second refrain. That gains the time, lowers risk, and quietly de-escalates the refrain problem without the tutor losing face. The reasoning to state aloud is that cuts should be made where the item is least load-bearing, not where the group is most anxious.
3. Advise the tutor on the kaitātaki wāhine's proposal to add poi in order to 'soften' the item.
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The word 'soften' is the problem. It frames poi as decoration and as a concession to what judges might find confronting - a weak reason for a structural change.
Poi is a discipline of timing and ensemble precision, and in many rohe it is a wāhine-led form with its own mana, not a softener. Adding it changes the item's texture and its gender balance of roles, which may be exactly right or exactly wrong depending on kaupapa.
The questions to put to the tutor:
- What does the item need at that point - a lift in tempo, a change of texture, a wāhine voice? If poi answers one of those, it is a compositional decision.
- Does the poi line carry kupu, or is it pure percussion? A wordless line and a line with text do different work.
- With six weeks, 24 performers and two kaitātaki, can the line be drilled to performance standard? A weak poi line is worse than none.
If the real aim is to give the kaitātaki wāhine a lead, that is legitimate and should be said plainly. If the real aim is to make the haka less confronting, that should be named and then rejected on kaupapa grounds. Recommend a decision hui with the tutor, both kaitātaki and a kaumātua, and record the reason, because the group will be asked about it.