Indigenous Dance and the Nation: Conflation and Metonym

Abstract

It is interesting, as a Kiwi living in Europe, to understand the ways in which New Zealand is perceived to those outside its borders. When I tell people I am from Aotearoa, their immediate reaction is to identify the country with images: beautiful scenery, the Lord of the Rings movies, sheep, and in particular rugby and the Haka. This ubiquitous image of the All Blacks performing a particular sequence of movement and sound before executing a performance of skill and strategy within the strict confines of an improvisational game is one explored by Stephen Jackson and Brendan Hokowhitu in their 2002 article Sports, Tribes and Technology: The New Zealand All Black Haka and the Politics of Identity. They suggest the conflation of rugby, the Haka and national identity is a deliberate representational strategy. While Jackson and Hokowhitu concentrate on the commercial aspects of this strategy, there is also a strong and present governmental presence within these representational strategies also.