Hakka | Course Paper

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Zach Hogueisson

Professor Piver

DCE 201

29 September 2017

The Haka

Part A

Some of the preconceptions that I had about the Haka were that the people who did this

dance were only large men who performed this dance as a ritual. I also thought this dance was

only done by islanders and in island areas. I felt like the dance would look violent and

intimidating to people who do not know what it is. It has a lot of yelling and screaming while

dancers also make crazy faces in the middle of the performance. Some other customs about the

environment that I thought of are tribal tattoos and when I think of the cultures, I think of Luaus

and beach scenes where there is fire all around and people gathered to watch the men preform

the ritual dance. Additionally, it reminded me of men wearing their printed shorts with no shirts

and them being sweaty from preforming such a high-energy dance.

Part B

The name of the specific movement form is the Haka. It is a violent dance that is a form

of a war cry. Predominantly men preform this dance and it is viewed as a very masculine and

intimidating dance. The dancing can happen in just about any location at just about any time of

day. It is usually done before an event that a battle is going to happen due to its origination from

a war cry. The dancing is something that in today’s common era can be found at football games

or other sporting events performed by the players before the game to intimidate the other team or

to get their own energy and adrenaline going before they play. This dance was done because the

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Maori people believed they were calling on the god of war to help them before they went to

battle. They also felt as if their personal morale would go up and they felt stronger after

preforming this war cry. Today the side of the god of war is more forgotten, but the haka is still

used to get personal morale up. “Designed to intimidate opponents and psychologically prepare

the team for the conflict ahead; it is one of many ways in which dance plays a role in the world

of sport today” (Andrews). The Haka is a dance that originated in New Zealand and was

performed by warriors before they would go to war against their enemy. This dance started as a

war cry, but was not made famous in this form, but was made famous due to sports; specifically,

rugby. “…The haka, as a powerful symbol of Mäori culture, has simply been colonizedas a

national rugby symbol to represent racial harmony despite the lack of Mäori material advances”