KDB222 World Dance | Entry 1
A lovely teacher by the name of Waiana Tagata from Heilani came and taught us about the different styles, such as the Ori Tahiti: Tahitian Dance and the Hawaiian Dance: Hula. I learnt that dance was a proud part of their cultural heritage and is often used for storytelling through pedestrian movements. The first thing we learnt about Tahitian dancing are, the hips are the center of attention. Just like a duck swimming. The hips in this case represent the feet where they are doing all the work whilst the upper half of the body is nice and still. In general, I found this challenging to control my upper body because I am so used to having my muscles tense. Whereas in Tahitian Dancing you have to relax your muscles and still maintain the raw energy for all the fast, little movements whilst having stillness on the upper half.
For this unit, we as a class are taking a wild adventure around the world through the eyes of dance in different cultures. Our first stop, Polynesian Dance. A lovely teacher by the name of Waiana Tagata from Heilani came and taught us about the different styles, such as the Ori Tahiti: Tahitian Dance and the Hawaiian Dance: Hula. I learnt that dance was a proud part of their cultural heritage and is often used for storytelling through pedestrian movements. The first thing we learnt about Tahitian dancing are, the hips are the center of attention. Just like a duck swimming. The hips in this case represent the feet where they are doing all the work whilst the upper half of the body is nice and still. In general, I found this challenging to control my upper body because I am so used to having my muscles tense and prepared for the next movement phrase. Whereas in Tahitian Dancing you have to let go and relax the bottom half of your body whilst having the ability to control for all the fast, little movements creating the allusion that the upper half of the body is nice and calm as a pond. Eventually after some practice and confidence, I was able to relax and have fun and enjoy myself with the movement. I was surprised to learn Hula and Tahitian dance technique may be similar but the differences define their style. Tahitian dancing is more about the side to side motions and using the best ability range your hips can extend to, which I found was easy and a lot of fun to try until I the next day I woke up with sore hips. Hula dancing is based more on the circular isolations of your hips.
Here below is a Video of Mrs. Tagata dancing the traditional drum dance called Tamure Tamure.
I guess I wasn’t surprised how the women and the men are portrayed in the culture of Polynesia. In their culture, the men would be the strong protectors of the tribe and the women looked after the children and their husbands. This is reflected quite clearly in the dances we learnt in relation to the dancing roles. Typically, a man’s stance is very strong and powerful with their movements whereas the women’s movements are all graceful and flowy like. After watching
Another style we learnt was a Hawaiian Dance: Hula, both the ancient (Hula Kahiko) and the Modern style (Hula Auana). I was surprised to learn that Hula wasn’t about the fake grass skirts, coconut bras and easy slow wave motions of the hands. Hula like other dance styles and genres since the 21st century have been modernized but has unfortunately been stereotyped to this thanks to Elvis Presley with his films, helping commercialize Hawaii globally. It makes me grateful that I am able to learn about the Polynesian culture through dance, being able to join and experience myself.
*Here below is a photo of a traditional Tahitian outfit worn by the women in the tribe*
Joy's adventures 