Haka are a variety of ceremonial dances in Māori culture. A performance art, haka are often performed by a group, with vigorous movements and stamping of the feet with rhythmically shouted accompaniment. Haka have been traditionally performed by both men and women for a variety of social functions within Māori culture. They are performed to welcome distinguished guests, or to acknowledge great achievements, occasions, or funerals.
Kapa haka groups are common in schools. The main Māori performing arts competition, Te Matatini, takes place every two years.
New Zealand sports teams' practice of performing a haka to challenge opponents before international matches has made the dance form more widely known around the world. This tradition began with the 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team tour and has been carried on by the New Zealand rugby union team (known as the All Blacks) since 1905. Although popularly associated with the traditional battle preparations of male warriors, conceptions that haka are typically war dances, and the inaccurate performance of haka by non-Māori, are considered erroneous by Māori scholars.
Etymology
The group of people performing a haka is referred to as a kapa haka (kapa meaning group or team, and also rank or row). The Māori word haka has cognates in other Polynesian languages, for example: Samoan saʻa (saʻasaʻa), Tokelauan haka, Rarotongan ʻaka, Hawaiian haʻa, Marquesan haka, meaning 'to be short-legged' or 'dance'; all from Proto-Polynesian saka, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian sakaŋ, meaning 'bowlegged'.
History and practice
According to Māori scholar Tīmoti Kāretu, haka have been "erroneously defined by generations of uninformed as 'war dances'", while Māori mythology places haka as a dance "about the celebration of life". Following a creation story, the sun god, Tama-nui-te-rā, had two wives, the Summer Maid, Hine-raumati, and the Winter Maid, Hine-takurua. Haka originated in the coming of Hine-raumati, whose presence on still, hot days was revealed in a quivering appearance in the air. This was haka of Tāne-rore, the son of Hine-raumati and Tama-nui-te-rā. Hyland comments that "[t]he haka is (and also represents) a natural phenomena [sic]; on hot summer days, the 'shimmering' atmospheric distortion of air emanating from the ground is personified as 'Te Haka a Tānerore'"
War haka (peruperu) were originally performed by warriors before a battle, proclaiming their strength and prowess in order to intimidate the enemy. Various actions are employed in the course of a performance, including facial contortions such as showing the whites of the eyes (pūkana), and poking out the tongue (whetero, performed by men only)
18th and 19th centuries
The earliest Europeans to witness haka described them as being "vigorous" and "ferocious". From their arrival in the early 19th century, Christian missionaries tried unsuccessfully to eradicate haka, along with other forms of Māori culture that they saw as conflicting with Christian beliefs and practice.
Modern haka
In modern times, various haka have been composed to be performed by women and even children. In some haka the men start the performance and women join in later. Haka are performed for various reasons: for welcoming distinguished guests, or to acknowledge great achievements, occasions or funerals.
The 1888–89 New Zealand Native football team began a tradition by performing haka during an international tour. The common use of haka by the national rugby union team before matches, beginning with The Original All Blacks in 1905, has made one type of haka familiar.
The choreographed dance and chant popularized around the world by the All Blacks derives from "Ka Mate", a brief haka previously intended for extemporaneous, non-synchronized performance, whose composition is attributed to Te Rauparaha (1760s–1849), a war leader of the Ngāti Toa tribe. The "Ka Mate" haka is classified as a haka taparahi – a ceremonial haka performed without weapons. "Ka Mate" is about the cunning ruse Te Rauparaha used to outwit his enemies, and may be interpreted as "a celebration of the triumph of life over death".
Specific legal challenges regarding the rights of the Ngāti Toa to be acknowledged as the authors and owners of "Ka Mate" were eventually settled in a Deed of Settlement between Ngāti Toa and the New Zealand Government and New Zealand Rugby Union agreed in 2009 and signed in 2012.
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spoiler for Arcane season 2 episode 1
Im catching up on Arcane. Is it a hot take to say that I liked the first three episodes the most? The child cast had such amazing writing and dynamics, and Victor and Jayce's storyline was also good, which is very important in not making the show boring. After that I think Vi's character becomes a bit muddled. She wants to save her sister, and take revenge on Silco, and ensure peace in the city, and also I guess she fell in love with Caitlyn along the way? She joins the cops in s2e1, which better be her making a mistake that she will regret, because if this show tries to end with "the cops are good actually" after the first scene is them killing Vi and Powder's parents, I will fucking hate it. Vi develops this sense of justice out of nowhere, she's suddenly about keeping peace in the city after Jinx attacks the council. If she was trying to inherit Vander's legacy that would make sense, but she's not, she just seems to do it because she likes Caitlyn so much. Also Echo already inherited Vander's legacy, but we barely get to see any of him.
The best bits of the show are anything focusing on Jinx imo, her psyche is by far the most interesting. She has an amazing screen presence, her character design is really distinctive even among the other great character designs in this show, and she even moves in a really unique way. She's like a snake sometimes, its awesome. Her relationships with Silco and Vi were what I enjoyed the most after the time skip.
From everything I heard about Arcane, I thought it would be incredible, and it is very good, but it peaks in the first three episodes. Andor had me gripped the whole way through, but Arcane just slots into the "good" tier of show for me. I think the biggest problem is pacing, the show is too fast. The curse of 8 episodes, 40 minutes each hurts this show, and I wish it wasn't industry standard now. I would have liked to see a lot more of the undercity after the timeskip, to see more of how Silco changed the city. I also would have liked to see Vi's time in prison, and Powder becoming Jinx, and how she became ingratiated into Silco's gang. I really think there should have been more episodes post-timeskip before Vi and Jinx reuinte. They're only apart for two episodes, and Vi isn't even in one of those episodes. I didn't know if Jinx wanted her sister back or hated her before they met. Also Echo is such an afterthought post-timeskip. He's obviously the leader of the Firelights, because he's the only unaccounted for character. And you're telling me this boy had his father figure killed in front of him and lost all his friends and family, and then he stepped up to become a community leader and foster a safe environment for kids like him, and we don't get to see it? Echo is the one morally good person in the show imo, and he's barely even in it.
Arcane isn't bad by any means, but the way people talked about it, I thought it was gonna be as good as Andor. Its not, which is a little disappointing, but I do like it. Its like a 7 or 8 out of 10. The first three episodes are a 10/10 for me though.
I finally watched Andor fairly recently and it is probably the most perfectly paced show I've seen since the streaming era has started, or at least it's up there. I still love Arcane a lot and would rank it higher than you for its interesting characters and relationships alone, and the way it gives them all agency while still placing them in the context of their situations, societies, and systems (a compliment I also give to Andor btw), it also helps that I came into Arcane with negative expectations instead of any positive ones. However, I also understand the fast pacing criticism you have. It seems like every show I've seen in the streaming era has either too many or too few episodes.
I'm trying to think of other streaming shows as well-paced as Andor and I'm coming up extremely short. Maybe Daredevil S1? Maybe Severance? But ya, seems like everything nowadays either has too many episodes, like a movie stretched over 6-10 episodes and it drags at some points, or there's too few and the show isn't able to spend enough time in it's most promising moments. I have way more examples in my head of the former though which may be why they leaned towards the faster side of pacing for this particular show.
Adaptations usally have too little episodes and streaming originals too many. Its a curse when you fall from 2h runtime with 25 episodes each season with an anual release schedule of half a year to the current model of 6-8 episodes with 40-60 minutes and one season per 3 years. You can not really do expansive stories with more than one big plotline and several pov characters with the modern structure.
Oh hey, you're right! That's 100% what it is. Didn't realize it until you said it, but that pattern matches all the streaming shows I've seen.
Yeah Arcane's 1x03 was the highlight of the show. They fumbled the bag hard with season 2 and Echo in general. I have a lot of thoughts about season 2. But season 1 has a lot of very dense scenes that manage to accomplish much in terms of symbolism, lore, characterization - especially good are they in introducing characters and making them feel relevant. I liked the analysis by Schnee a lot.
Andor like Arcane Season 1 does not waste time with artsy characters emoting into the air and is tightly structured. But I agree with your assessment. Let us hope that Andor's season does not drop the ball, but with the Ghorman situation- I think Gilroy will have a lot to feed upon.