Beyoncé’s Response (eh?): Feeling the Ihi of Spontaneous Haka Performance in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Abstract

The effectiveness of any haka performance is measured by the performers’ ability to elicit an emotional and psychic response in the spectator: to incite ihi. The (re)action of US pop star Beyoncé to an impromptu haka sparked vigorous online debate. Stripping back preconceptions regarding tradition, gender, and ethnicity, this spontaneous performance is read as an unbound moment where reciprocal awe and respect invoke a powerful tripartite performative energy, the wana.

Haka on the Horizon: Māori contemporary dance and whare tapere

“…Hokowhitu (2014) discusses how Mäori imagery, circulated by the postcolonial media and global conglomerates, has stymied our understandings of haka by "selling the exoticism of 'traditional' Mäori masculine culture" (p. 274). While there is a widespread belief that haka is a male terrain, Hyland (2015) contends that "kapa haka actually began as an event initiated by women" (p. 73) according to the founding whare tapere story of Tinirau and Kae (Royal, 2014a). In short, there is a lot of miseducation about haka origins and evolution.…”