Book Review
The Art of Kiribati Dance
'It’s supposed to look relaxed, but it’s not'
Mention the art of dance in the Pacific Islands, and the first image to flare in most minds is invariably the allure and excitement of the tamure as presented by the French Polynesians and Cook Islanders. Comparatively few travellers have seen the dances of Kiribati. Apart from rare excursions abroad by Kiribati’s dance teams in Fiji and the Solomon Islands, where small Gilbertese communities are resident, it is only by venturing into the Central Pacific to the isolated islands of Kiribati that travellers will discover a style of dance with vividly memorable intricacies of technique, costume, passion and a rising pitch of excitement. Many of the dances of Kiribati begin slowly and progressively accelerate to a crescendo of colour, movement and sound.
Intricacy is the word for the movements and pace of the dances, although this won’t be obvious to the observer.
- ADVERTISEMENT -
Here’s how one dancer explained her art: "...your standing posture... you lean forward a bit, never lean backwards. This is also one of the important rules of dancing, it is much easier to move around if you lean forward while standing.
"It’s so particular and precise about exactly where your hand is and the angle that your palm is at, and where the elbow’s at, everything. It’s supposed to look relaxed but it’s not relaxed."
And another: "When you start off, the song is slow and there is this gradual build-up, and with the build-up the adrenaline inside me builds up, and I find my arm movements just become so much more direct and precise and really strong and I feel—I’m happy to dance. When you start to dance, you do a particular movement well because you’ve got all this energy, then they (the singers) react to it and that gives you more energy and you just want to keep dancing."
The dances of Kiribati, the costumes which are a composite part of them and importantly, the intense emotions of the performers who engage in them, are explained in an elegantly composed book, Akekeia! Traditional Dance in Kiribati.
It’s the product of the labour of love of Tony and Joan Whincup, who became fascinated by Kiribati’s dancers. With the backing of Massey University, New Zealand, Kodak New Zealand, and a lot of friends in Kiribati, they produced a record worthy for inclusion in collections of volumes of Pacificana.
Extracts of transcriptions printed in English and Gilbertese imbue the book strongly with the flavour of Kiribati and a culture influenced by the leisurely but stark way of atoll life.
"When I dance, I feel great pleasure," related another performer. "In fact, there is a kind of emotion which is hard to define when I’m dancing, compared to when I’m sitting down just like now.
"Most dancers can experience different emotions. As for me, I always cry and my whole body shakes on its own accord...this feeling is very different from the feeling experienced when one dances either twisting or rock and roll." Dancers will be found in Kiribati rehearsing virtually everywhere. Formal practice is strictly disciplined.
As new songs and steps are composed, they’re kept secret to avoid the impact of their surprise on an audience.
Men wear specially fine-woven mats for standing dances and men and women cover their legs for sitting dances.
Copies of Akekeia! Traditional Dance in Kiribati can be obtained from the Sydney and Tarawa offices of Tobaraoi Travel: Email tobaraoi@bigpond.com;
Sydney address: Suite 904, Kindersley House, Level 9, 33 Bligh Street,
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia.
