In pre-European Polynesia, dances ‘were many and varied’ (W. Ellis, 1831) but little else is known about them. All we know is that both men and women danced, together or separately. Certain dances were performed standing up, others sitting down. Musicians used to accompany the dances with a limited number of instruments, essentially the pahu (drum with two skins) the vivo, a nasal flute.
Associated, as was tattooing, with nudity and therefore with immodesty, dancing was forbidden by missionaries. It was not until the 1950s that this ancestral art found its place again among Polynesian customs, and was reborn thanks to oral transmission and the writing of travellers.
In Tahitian dancing today there are, four types of dance.
The other archipelagos were greatly influenced by Tahitian dancing,but they have preserved certain of their own dances such as the bird dance in the Marquesas, kapa in the Tuamotus and pe’i in the Gambiers.
Today’s orchestras use percussion and stringed instruments. Among the percussion is the to’ere; the fa’alete; the pahu with two skins and beaten with a stick and the pahu tupa’i rima, with one skin, that is played with the hands. The stringed instruments consist of the ukulele and the guitar.
Other instruments that had long disappeared have progressively made a come-back, those such as the ihara, a split bamboo drum and the vivo, a nasal flute. Finally, all sorts of sounds are obtained by clacking stones, from shells, by using penu (piion) or coconuts.