A Historical context for Dances of Life

Dance is a fundamental vehicle of cultural expression throughout Oceania. Here Oceania refers to the Pacific Islands and the Pacific diaspora extending from Australia and New Zealand, including the indigenous peoples of those two nations, to Canada, the USA, England and Europe. Oceania also refers to those groups culturally divided into Polynesia ("many" islands) in the east, Micronesia ("small" islands) in the central and northwest Pacific, and Melanesia ("black" islands) in the west. While these terms have problematic European origins, they have been taken on by people in both the islands and diaspora as meaningful ways of describing their wider cultural identities.

Haka. "Ha" means breath. "Ka" means on fire or fiery words. Put them both together, fiery words.

Pacific peoples, like indigenous groups across the world, have carried and passed on their knowledge through oral, visual and embodied traditions for millennia. The performance arts reflect spiritual, political, social, economic and aesthetic values and practices. We can learn much about a people and their history by paying attention to dance and body movement.

Dance, music, architecture, navigation and the arts have always functioned as the primary vehicles for creating, recording, sharing and transforming knowledge. These forms reflect codes for conduct and responsibility, provide the glue for social cohesion and mediate relations between the human, supernatural and ancestral realms. From as early as the 16th century in Guam to as late as the 20th century in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, European colonialism, Christianity and the written word have altered the style and content of dance and music in most islands. Still, these art forms continue to function as the most visible markers of cultural and national identities. Today cultural dances build self-esteem and instill pride in both performers and audiences, particularly in the younger generations who exist at the nexus of competing local, national and global forces.

The performance arts embody spiritual, political, social, economic and aesthetic values and practices.

The Pacific Festival of the Arts was created in 1972 by the South Pacific Commission, and is now hosted every 4 years by a different Pacific nation. The impetus for the gathering was a perception that the arts and cultures of the Pacific were under threat of disappearing. It is now clear that the arts continue to thrive and the 2-week long gathering has become a showcase for visual, musical and choreographic diversity contributing to the "multicultural" or Pan-Pacific theme of regional identity. The festival has also been one of the driving forces behind cultural revitalization, competition, standardizing of choreography and music, and — along with the growing influence of tourism — shifting performance from the ritual to presentational mode.

Today cultural dances build self-esteem and instill pride in both performers and audiences, particularly in the younger generations.

In the past audience and performers were not separate but today, the stage is increasingly becoming the primary space of Pacific dance. While performance arts continue to form part of an unbroken, dynamic living tradition in some island groups, and by this I mean open to experimentation while building upon ancient styles or techniques, in an effort to revitalize and maintain "traditional" culture, it has become less flexible in others. The Festival of Arts has thus also served as a venue for determining the authenticity of indigenous performance, often highlighting the vast differences rather than similarities between Pacific peoples. While all culture is undoubtedly fluid and ever changing, ironically, "authentic" performance often reflects the post-colonial rather than pre-colonial experience.

The festival has also been one of the driving forces behind cultural revitalization, and standardizing of choreography and music.

Dances of Life highlights several groups that have been featured at the Arts Festival over the last five years, and these essays offer a context in which each of the groups might be understood in terms of the connections between dance, culture, history, and economic and political survival in the Pacific. The title "Dances of Life" resonates with the ways in which islanders themselves have described and understood the importance of dance. While Pacific Islanders recognize this importance, few scholars or writers have, and it is still difficult to obtain in-depth studies or research on dance — there is more available on music — despite its extreme popularity in the tourist and entertainment realms. Pacific dance studies is thus a highly specialized and still limited field.

These essays offer a context in which each country might be understood in terms of dance, culture, history, and economic and political survival in the Pacific.

Ultimately this documentary film begins to reveal the reality that the cultures in this sea of islands are very much rooted in the land, sea and moving body. Such creative cultures form the basis for Pacific survival in a rapidly changing world.

Katerina Martina Teaiwa, PhD
University of Hawai'i at Manoa