On the 4th I decided to finally go to Atuona to watch the training of the dancers for the big Polynesian festival at Nuku-Hiva.<\/p>\n
I arrived shortly before 1800.
\nMany gathered already on the open, about football field size, grass covered area of the Centre Culturelle d’Atuona, Hiva-Oa.
\nA place for Polynesian cultural events, framed and with larger, men sized lava stones carved tikis. (For tikis see link to Wikipedia in 231103 Shopping for food.)<\/p>\n
There was already a percussion band of about 10 – 15 drummers with various sizes of drums. Some are as high as my chest.<\/p>\n
The waiting people sang a Polynesian song. Got the impression that’s a warm up while
\nmore and more people gathered.<\/p>\n
Suddenly they sang Happy Birthday for someone who celebrated his or her anniversary.<\/p>\n
A moderator read a text in Polynesia, the group replied. Later it became song with a wonderful sound. The singing is a part of the training<\/p>\n
Then the group dispersed to change into a new line up of the people. Basic position for a dance was taken.<\/p>\n
Then a new song started. To me it sounded like a prayer. Everyone in the big group had the head bent down.<\/p>\n
Later I was able to estimate the group as consisting of about 80 women and 80 men. Together with drummers and some supporting people 200 people. A big number when one considers that the population is about 2000 of the whole island.<\/p>\n
Then the voices got louder and the group moves forward. Their movements become a dance, with the drums making the rythm. What an atmosphere!<\/p>\n
The sound of the big drums can not only be heard but even felt on my chest. What a power these drummers used. All is unplugged; no mikes, no amplifiers and no speakers.<\/p>\n
While the women sang in their natural voice, the men sang in a very deep voice with guttural sounds.<\/p>\n
The swinging hips of the women together with the soft and kind of swinging, wave like movements of arms and hands just looks peaceful, gentle, graceful, and underlined by their smiling faces.<\/p>\n
The men’s dances appeared as if they want to threaten an invisible enemy or stimulate themselves for a big fight. They also held maces in their hands. The steps of their dances were stamping, the movements of their arms powerful. I felt that during the men’s dance the drums were driving even more. What a contrast between female and male performance.<\/p>\n
Although I don’t understand the Marquesian language, I got the impression that both the women and the men identified themselves with the lyrics of their songs and the movements of their bodies.<\/p>\n
At the beginning, the female and male group performed separately but the group movement was tuned to each other. Later, step by step the positions where structured mixed and it became one group of estimated 160 dancers.<\/p>\n
The choreography of the dances is rather complex, requiring lots of training; so are the rythms and beats of the drums.<\/p>\n
In between there was also the sound of big shells to be heard.<\/p>\n
Suddenly I recognized something unusual. The women all dance barefoot and the man mostly wore sneakers. I assume that they came from work directly for the training and just kept the shoes on they use for working.<\/p>\n
A gentle breeze make the temperature and the atmosphere very pleasant. Only my bum hurted after a while sitting on lava cut stone with only little grass grown on it.<\/p>\n
After a break of about 1\/2 hour trusting continued. All in all it was an almost 2 hour event.<\/p>\n
On my way home, still walking in the village, I started to hitchhike. A lady stopped and have me a ride. Accidentally I recognized her as one of the dancers. She was very happy that I recognized her, but I also got the feeling that she’s happy and content because of the dancing and singing she did the last two hours.<\/p>\n
Just before she dropped me at the gas station, we passed the first hull of a Pollynesian
\ncatamaran they newly built and she told me, with lots of joy that her husband works on that boat project. The hull is about 15 m long so the beam could be 7 – 8 m. I’m curious to see this traditional boat when it’s ready.<\/p>\n
After I left her car wishing her a “Bonne Soir\u00e9e”, I recognized that she did not need to go somewhere in the vicinity of the gas station, but just brought me there, before going back to her home closer to the Atuona.
\nWhat a wonderful gesture!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the 4th I decided to finally go to Atuona to watch the training of the dancers for the big Polynesian festival at Nuku-Hiva. I arrived shortly before 1800. Many gathered already on the open, about football field size, grass covered area of the Centre Culturelle d’Atuona, Hiva-Oa. A place for Polynesian cultural events, framed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-14"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sosx.de\/cat-mare\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}