But can it be Art? Kapa Haka as a contemporary indigenous performance practice

Abstract

This talk represents the latest stage in our ongoing conversation. As with our previously performed public dialogues such as ‘Crossing the Cultural Divide’ in 2001and ‘Stages of Pōwhiri’ in 2008, we’re staking positions that are to some degree more contrary than we might hold in private (see Papesch and Mazer 2001 & 2010). We do this for the sake of argument, to have a bit of a play with thinking out loud in ways that you may, or may not, find acceptable, and as such perhaps to spark controversy, because we believe that conscious contentiousness can be cheerful and also genuinely productive of new ideas about the relationship between culture and performance.