Abstract
This article argues that because identity and culture are experienced physically, emotionally and kinaesthetically as well as constructed cerebrally, there is value in exploring their flow, their complexity and their intersection through aesthetic and embodied means. It explores how the use of dance and drama within broad educational contexts offer opportunity for such exploration.
It reports three cases. The first is a historic one: the work of Arnold Wilson’s Te Mauri Pakeaka programme, 1975–1988. Here the focus is on the way physicality and exploration of form allowed participants to venture into new spaces and find embodied meanings. The second is from a more recent project, Mariao Hohaia’s Taitamariki Ngapuhitanga Kauapapa in 2006. Here the focus is on devising a performance that allowed participants from widely different cultural backgrounds and experiences to find space to develop their own understandings, contribute and collaborate. The third is from a recent workshop at the 2014 Drama NZ Conference. Here the focus is on how engagement with dance and the dancer provoked and allowed teachers to move out of their comfort zone as knowers and directors, and discover different worlds.
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Notes
- 1.
The Treaty of Waitangi, 1840, established New Zealand as a British colony at the same time as it guaranteed Māori rights to land, chiefly sovereignty and other existing possessions.
- 2.
Taha Māori might be translated as the Māori side. The term was used to denote studies about Māori protocols and values.
- 3.
A marae is a communal Māori space, belonging to a particular tribe, sub-tribe or extended family. It normally has an open outside area, a meeting house, a dining hall and perhaps other buildings.
- 4.
The historic Māori Land March from the Far North to parliament in Wellington took place in 1975 and protested the continuing alienation of Māori land.
- 5.
Bastion Point was Māori land that was being taken to build a high cost subdivision. Ngati Whatua occupied the land for 506 days.
- 6.
For many years Engineering students in Auckland had performed a travesty of the haka as part of the capping parade that accompanied graduation. Tama Toa, a group of Māori student activists, responded to the mock haka with a real physical challenge. Arrests and court cases followed.
- 7.
A group who rehearses and performs the haka. While the haka itself is a dance of challenge or affirmation that is embedded on traditional Māori culture, the kapa haka is a relatively modern development.
- 8.
The 1986 Report of the Waitangi Tribunal on the Te Reo Māori Claim concluded that Māori children were not being properly educated because of prolonged systemic failure.
- 9.
At that time the marks in School Certificate, a national examination, were generated by a bell curve distribution. Māori typical fell into the lower portions of the curve. Withdrawal of Māori candidates would have shifted the achievement of the rest of the population. The threat to withdraw Māori children was made in protest against the fact that marks in Māori language were benchmarked against the candidates’ marks in English.
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Greenwood, J. (2016). Dancing into the Third Space: The Role of Dance and Drama in Discovering Who We Are. In: Ashley, L., Lines, D. (eds) Intersecting Cultures in Music and Dance Education. Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28989-2_10
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