The Wiggles are an institution beloved by generations of Aussie and Kiwi kids, and they take that responsibility seriously. Yellow Wiggle Tsehay Hawkins talks to Capsule about bringing Ethiopian dance moves to a new audience, and what we can learn from the gentle curiosity of children.
I’m not sure what it says about the stage of life that I’m at, but when interviewing Tsehay Hawkins, the Yellow Wiggle and a person who is sunshine in human form, the first question I can only ask is: what is it like to do a job where you have to be full of energy and in a good mood every day?
Tsehay laughs a big laugh at this. Energy is not a problem for her – partly because she’s 18, and partly because the job itself, and the audience that The Wiggles serves, is brimming with enthusiasm. She’s fresh from the NZ tour and already the dates for 2025 are booking up quickly – The Wiggles are as popular as ever.
“We’re always having a lot of fun – our group is very funny and we’re all friends – and I just go off that energy,” she beams. “Sometimes I’ll be tired, but when I step into the room, my energy immediately goes up.”
Tsehay joined The Wiggles as a Wiggly back-up dancer when she was 15 years old (!) and was promoted to Yellow Wiggle, replacing Emma Wiggle, in 2021. It is quite surreal to write so seriously about The Wiggles, but they are no joke – the performance group is an institution around the world, and so taking on the Yellow Jersey is a bit like taking on the winning jersey number in a sports team. It’s a hell of a big responsibility, and it rests on the shoulders of someone who is literally a teenager, and who – almost overnight – became instantly recognisable to an entire generation of children and parents.
“I still don’t believe it at times,” Tsehay laughs. “When I joined, they told me to ‘choose a hairstyle,’ something that would be easy and that I would feel comfortable with. And so, I chose this Afro puff, because this is the hair I’ve had since I was little. But I forget, like, when I go to the shops, that this is my character hairstyle. So, when I go out, I get ‘that’s the Wiggles girl a LOT,’” she laughs. “But it’s great! You meet a lot of new friends along the way.”
The ongoing legacy of being the Yellow Wiggle is in safe hands with Tsehay – and it means a great deal to the legion of Wiggles fans. Back in 2020, founding Wiggle Anthony looked at the cast and realised that they weren’t representing the audience they were performing for, and set about changing that. There was a little noise from the usual blowhards when the casting news was announced, but the overwhelming response to welcoming in cast members like Tsehay and First Nations ballerina Evie Ferris, Asian-Australian performer Kelly Hamilton, and Filipino musician John Pearce was one of, well, joy.
“It was a really easy integration,” Tsehay says. “It’s good for the little ones to see people who look like them on the screen, because if you can see it, you can be it. And if they see it on TV, then that’s what society accepts. I feel very blessed and grateful to be part of that next step in the Wiggles legacy.”
One of the other ways that Tsehay is impacting that legacy is by bringing in new types of dancing to the Wiggles oeuvre. Tsehay is a world-champion dancer and was adopted from Ethiopia when she was a baby by her Aussie adoptive parents – who also adopted her younger brother, Kendly, from Columbia when he was a baby as well. So, she brings some new moves to her Yellow Wiggle routine, including some distinctive Ethiopian moves which are all about the shoulders.
“It’s kind of surreal to look out into the crowd and see little white children doing the Eskista dancing, which is Ethiopian dancing – never in my life did I think I would see that,” she beams.
Her Aussie parents enrolled Tsehay in dancing lessons from when she was very young, to try and strengthen her connection to her Ethiopian roots. As her mother Robyn said in a previous interview, you don’t just adopt a child, you adopt a culture, and dancing was a way to bring that spiritual tie in.
“As you can tell, I’ve got this straight Aussie accent and I live in a semi-rural country town, so I get that vibe that I’m so proud of the Aussie side,” Tsehay says. “But then I’m brown skinned with an Afro, so I’m also very proud of my Ethiopian heritage – and having both gives me that sense of belonging and knowing who I am.”
Australia is – like many countries – a mixed bag when it comes to how it handles diversity and Tsehay says we can learn a lot from how kids approach diversity: with curiosity and a total lack of pre-conceived assumptions. “They’re seeing everything for the first time, so they’ve got no judgement or no background,” she says. “[For adults] maybe it’s about not over-thinking it as much?”
Growing up with white parents, Tsehay has long experienced what is a curious question out of interest, rather than a pointed question or comment – and if it comes from an interested, rather than judgmental place, then she’s happy to answer it. She does think that being a girl has helped – even though her brother Kendly is younger than her, Tsehay says he’s already experienced more racism than she has.
“A lot of the times, it’s not from the kids, it’s from the parents.” She recalls one time when she and her family were at the local supermarket, and a little boy was looking at Kendly. The boy’s mother said, ‘Don’t worry, his mum will take him home and wash him later,’ basically implying that his skin was dirty. It is the kind of stupid throwaway comment that sticks in the teeth of everyone involved, but Tsehay says her mum handled it with nothing but grace.
“Mum was like ‘no, that’s actually his skin colour and he’s really proud of his background,’” she recalls. “It’s something she does so well. She would say, ‘He’s got chocolate skin and it’s his superpower.’ Because a lot of times, the little ones don’t know – they’re just following on from the people that they look up to. So, if you approach it in a nice way – rather than matching anger with anger – it helps.”
And nothing can be more quietly powerful than having a generation of children watch a Wiggles crew who looks like them and sounds like them, singing joyfully in their own homes on a daily basis.