Encounters: The exotic art of Tamure dancing

By SUSAN BUCKLAND


I felt a pang of envy watching the dancers. The men rippled with muscle. The women were lissom. They were young Tahitians, dancing under the stars on the island of Moorea.

Observing their movements I felt as supple as a plank. They were graceful one minute and pulsing with hip-swivelling vitality the next. Suddenly the drums rolled to a halt and they spread out among the audience to pluck a partner.

"Bellfum," said a handsome male dancer as he pulled me to my feet.

"No, not Belgium, I'm from New Zealand," I said, foolishly mistaking the language. The "Belgium" response puzzled this French-speaking Polynesian God.

"Belle femme," he tried again. The message sank in second time round. Oh the ignominy, stuffing up a compliment from one so divine. And then trying to dance with him on stage. My attempts must have looked like a pendulum unsure which way to swing.

I resolved to have a lesson in Tahitian dance before departing French Polynesia. After all, it has enchanted visitors for more than 230 years.

When Captain Cook arrived to observe the transit of the planet Venus in 1769 he was moved by the dance but he managed to describe his reaction to the female dancers with captainly restraint.

Alan Moorhead records it in his excellent book, The Fatal Impact. The dance, called the Timordee, seemed provocatively sensuous to Cook but he acknowledged that the girls "keep time to a great nicety".

Rochette Reia did the same. She came to my hotel to spend an hour imparting to me something of the dance that generations have passed on to one another. Her name, like her exotic looks, reflected Tahitian and French heritage.

A grass skirt swung on her hips and she wore frangipani round her neck and on long, silky hair. I felt frumpish, and exposed. She said my hotel room was too small for Tamure dancing, so the lesson took place on the beach - in front of everyone else's rooms. As curious guests emerged to watch, I concentrated on Reia's movements and words. "Watch my hips." They rotated slowly, seductively.

Tamure is more than a dance, it's a language, Reia explained. The movements tell of creation and nurturing life forces. They evoke myths, history, places, ancestors and loved ones.

I tried to emulate Reia as she captured the sun and the rain with graceful turns of her arms and fingers. The bystanders multiplied and cameras clicked. Reia changed into a crimson costume and stepped out of a Gauguin painting.

We embarked on a faster movement - the Tamure Otea. Out on the reef, waves were breaking. On land, my hips struggled to roll in a figure of eight. Reia's hips revolved even faster and rapidly reversed.

She learned Tamure as a child, the ideal time. Free of inhibition, children in French Polynesia are immersed in innate rhythm, in the dance of their forefathers. Look on the bright side, I thought while trying to capture the sun. Rome wasn't built in a day.

The final costume change for Reia was a smock, the cover-all dress that God-fearing missionaries obliged her female ancestors to wear. They arrived in the late 1700s to reclaim the pagans for Christianity and, in Moorhead's words, "naked Venus had been supplanted by Mary Magdalene".

So it is that to leave those well-meaning missionaries with feelings of work well done the dance of the people carried on in secret. And today, Reia wears the smock with the starring grace of an actress in a period play. No amount of shrouding of her curves can disguise her Tahitian charm and beauty.