Nikao action song dress rehearsal

Like the previous video, this one is also about four-and-a-half minutes long and for the same reason, to give viewers a better impression of the action song (kapa rima) the Nikao dancers, drummers and choreographer produced for the 2009 Maeva Nui cultural dance competition.
Sharp-eyed people will probably spot that not all the costumes have been completed. Also, in the final performance the young warriors at the beginning of the dance were carrying gifts of food. You have to use your imagination here.
The dancers have different costumes for each of the four dance sections but the ute (chant) is usually a pareu uniform while the pe’e (legend) is made from rauti and other greenery and is prepared just before the competition performance. The amount of work that goes into the drum dance and action song costumes is enormous but, as I mentioned in the previous post, Nikao came first in the costume section so the effort paid off.
The dress rehearsal was a pretty intense affair with all four items performed then at the end of the night some of the experts in the audience came up with criticism and suggestions for improvement.
Only one dance is performed on competition nights - it must have been a piece of cake after the rehearsal!
The standards at Te Maeva Nui get higher each year and Nikao placed second in the kapa rima.
Congratulations to choreographer Piritau Nga and his team of assistants as well as to the dancers.
(The Ministry of Cultural Development videos all the performances and DVDs are available on their website.)