Tahitian Dancing My Life Away

You may have noticed that for the last few weeks I've been blogging about older stories and general thoughts, not what I'm up to here on Tahiti. The reason for this is that I've been dancing - sometimes up to 20 hours a week - preparing for a huge show I'm going to perform in this Saturday, May 15th. This is my first year taking Tahitian dance classes but by a mix of circumstances I have now committed to dance in five acts of a huge show at To'ata Amphitheater, Tahiti's biggest and best venue; everyone from UB40 to the dancers at the massive Heiva I Tahiti festival perform here. I've been so wrapped up in wood percussion rhythms, graceful ukulele and making my five costumes out of leaves, shells and beautiful Tahitian fabrics, that I've hardly had time to eat.

The good news is that you'll all be able to catch up on the story soon. I have a three-part series that's going to be run by a venerable, soon-to-be-named travel site in the coming weeks and I'll make an announcement here when the first story is up. Till then, here's a video I filmed at last Saturday's all-day practice session. It's just a teaser. Enjoy!

Post-Heiva: Better Than the Real Thing?

While the Heiva is an over the top, Polynesian entertainment spectacular put on at Tahiti's biggest venue, seeing the dancers perform their acts after the festival and away from the crowds can be even better. Last weekend my family and I took a four-day trip to Moorea and I got to see a post-Heiva show by Tamariki Oparo, a dance troupe from Rapa who won the second place prize at the Heiva dance competitions. Their show had been the talk of Tahiti because of its low-frills authenticity. Most winning acts are put on by professional troupes who practice year-round and have bigger budgets but Tamariki Oparo are a small group of mostly teenage dancers that come from French Polynesia's most remote island, Rapa in the Gambier Archipelago, that has a population of under 500. This means that he 50 or so dancers represent about 10% of the entire population! I had been sorry I'd missed their dance during the festival.

This surprise local Moorea show was at the Club Bali Hai, an old school American-run boutique hotel right on Cooks Bay that I've always loved for its unpretentious sailor's vibe. No advance tickets were for sale, we just had to show up and pay 1000 CFP (about US$12) at the door (my Heiva tickets for mediocre seats cost 2500 CFP). Our kids got in free. There's no stage at Club Bali Hai, just a big lawn next to their little outdoor cafe called L'Ananas Bleu (the Blue Pineapple) squashed between the breezes of Cooks Bay and Moorea's vertical peaks. Apparently Tamariki Oparo had spent the previous week or so performing as a handful of other hotels around the country and this was one of their final shows before going home to Rapa.




About 150 people were in the audience, many of us just sitting cross-legged on the lawn. We were right in front on the ground, best seats in the house. The leader of the troupe came out first and gave an unusually long opening speech in Tahitian and French and asked the audience to please translate it into English to anyone who needed it. My favorite part of his discourse was when he described how there were really no stores in Rapa but plenty of fish and very fertile soil. "We'll all do great if there's ever independence from France," he said. "But I'm not so sure about all of you." He then told us the story of the up-coming dance: the evangelization of Rapa. This was no surprise since I'd already seen the group's singing act (see my previous blog) and their theme had been much more religious than most. The people of Rapa are obviously quite pious.

The dance began with the whole troupe, dressed in ti' leaves and smeared with mud dancing Rapa style. Now Rapa style is a little different than Tahitian style dancing. Instead of just moving the lower body they wiggle and writhe their upper bodies too making it a little less refined looking but much more fun and energetic. You just sort of want to get up and dance, mud-covered with them. Josh was taking photos and some of the guys were really hamming it up for him.

Next, two of the Rapa dancers sat in a wooden outrigger that they were able to drag along the grass to make it look like they were moving in the ocean. The narrator explained they were out fishing. Next a group of Europeans (actually Rapa dancers dressed in white pants, white and blue striped pants and sailors hats) came up in another boat, kidnapped the Rapa fisherman and took them to Tahiti. In the next act the dancers wore Tahitian style dance costumes (long fiber skirts and bandeau bras) and danced a Tahitian style dance - it was great to see the contrast with the Rapa style. The fishermen get evangelized after some beautiful dancing scenes then go back to Rapa and the mud and leaf dancers again, to spread the word of God.



I loved the show but couldn't help but be a little sickened by the irony of the theme. The evangelists banned Polynesian dancing just as soon as they had the power to do so, so the fact that this was a dance telling the evangelization story, via dance . . . well you get the picture. While not historically correct, I do appreciate that the Rapa people are deeply religious and I am happy that nowadays they get to both express their love of God and their prowess in dance.

In all this was nothing like watching the Heiva where you look down on a stage from a large amphitheater and hear everything filtered through speakers. No, this was the real deal with the dancers looking us right in the eye and being able to see them sweat. At one point the star male dancer even lost his skirt and continued on with the rest of the show in his bright blue skivvies. You wouldn't see that at the Heiva. Someday I'll make it to Rapa, one of the only high islands in the country I have never made it to - there's only one boat every two months!

Notes from the Heiva

French Polynesia's biggest festival is the July Heiva when all the best traditional dancers, singing groups and athletes get on stage and show everyone what Tahitian culture is all about. Unfortunately I miss the Heiva almost every year because I'm either off in some other country researching a guidebook or because I'm back in California visiting family. This year however I'm broke and out of work so I got enjoy some of these festivities that, in my opinion put Vegas to shame (note that I've never actually been to Vegas but after seeing the Heiva who needs it!).


My good friend Amel is an ex-dancer and Tahitian dance aficionado and she bought us tickets to what she thought would be the best show of the Heiva dance competitions, the Hei Tahiti performance at To'ata Amphitheater in Papeete. The way the Heiva dance competitions work is that there is a first amateur performance by a dance school, usually made up of every race, shape and size of men, women, girls and boys who all enthusiastically shake their hips and waggle their knees. This is the kind of the show most of us locals are used to seeing at parties and restaurants throughout the year - a few trip ups inevitably happen and there's a huge range of talent from the stiff to the future professionals.

Next come the himene singing competitions. I remember finding these a little boring but this year I lucked out since the group was from Rapa, the most remote island in French Polynesia and also the most traditional. A circle is made with a few rows of seated singers in the interior with a ring of standing performers along the outer perimeter. The leader of the group conducts the many Christian inspired yet undeniably Polynesia harmonies that converge to make one forceful, spine tingling melodic creation. In Rapa they use lots of flat notes making the songs at first sound off key but as the ear becomes used to hearing the uncommon combinations, it's impossible not to become completely taken away into the heart of the song. I was so moved by the force of this group, that honestly I nearly started to cry. Amel told me that the music from Rapa fascinates anthropologists since the melodies are considered some of the least Western compositions in the world. There's a fantastic video of this group at the 2007 Heiva at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wH3sI8kT7o.

After the himene come the percussion competition where the group does a few required numbers then some wild improves that make you want to get up and boogie. For some reason the group we saw thought it would be cool to wear these giant plaited coconut palm frond balls over their heads so that they looked like something between the Residents (an eighties industrial music group that wore giant eyeballs over their heads) and swamp creatures. We never figured out why they thought this would be a groovy gimmick but they seemed to be able to play just fine even with big baskets covering their heads.

Last comes the piece de resistance, the professional dance show. Hei Tahiti began with a giant fake smoking coconut center stage out which came the first dancers. The story of the show was about the ancient land division wars in Raivavae (an island in the southern Gambier archipelago) and it was relatively easy to follow what was happening. A beautiful woman danced alone till a man ran in, swept her over his shoulder and ran off with her to a little hut at the side of the stage. When they came out they had a baby - I mean a real baby - and then the wars began. Tahitian dance is always performed in a series of styles from the slow suggestive aparima to the fast hip gyrations of the otea. Costumes are changed several times and in the case of the professional groups these are outrageous confections ranging from simple skirts and bras made of ti leaves to massive, mother of pearl bejeweled head dresses.

I used to always think that the beautiful, graceful female dancers were the star attraction but as I get older I appreciate the men more and more. Everyone talks about how sexy all that female hip shaking is but ladies, a muscular Tahitian man wearing only leaves and scissoring his knees back and forth seriously gets the hormones raging. Some of these guys you wouldn't look twice at on the street but get them on stage in a loincloth and they become beacons of masculine sexual energy. I don't doubt for a second that the women do the same thing to guys in the audience. The ancient Tahitians had a handle on sexual expression that Hollywood still has no clue about - these shows get you at your most base human level.

Hei Tahiti won the dance competition this year so I'm really happy I got to see their show. Now the Heiva is officially over there are still a few performances to catch. I was lucky enough to catch Tamariki Oparo from Rapa who danced in Moorea last weekend and I promise to blog, with pictures about that soon. All the winning groups are also performing at the Intercontinental and Meridien hotels on Tahiti through August so I'm hoping I'll get to see another show I missed at the Heiva.

The Heiva is organized by Tahiti Nui 2000 but Tahiti Tourism (www.tahititourism.com) can help with info about getting tickets for next year's show from around the month of April. Note that the only picture on this post isn't actually from the Heiva (it's from the Billabong Pro awards ceremony) since you need a special (and pricey) permit to shoot photos at the Heiva.