Nikao drum dance dress rehearsal

This video is a bit longer than usual, 4.5 minutes, but I wanted to show more than just a few highlights of the drum dance performance by the young people of Nikao village.
The effort and enthusiasm they show are wonderful and if you’ve seen any of the earlier videos about Nikao preparing for Maeva Nui (cutting hibiscus, preparing kiriau and practicing) the changes are remarkable.
As well as the dance practices, the dancers have to make their own costumes, with a bit if help from the village mamas, former dancers, friends, relatives and so on. There are four sections to the Maeva Nui competition and two of them (drum dance and action song) have very elaborate costumes so by the time of the competition everyone must be very tired. All that effort for just a few minutes on the stage!
In this case everyone would think it well worth while because Nikao took first place in the drum dance and costume sections.
In fact Oire Nikao won the costume, ura pa’u and pe’e sections, came second in the choir and kapa rima sections and shared third place in the ute section with Nukuroa.
As Cook Islands News reported, “It was a thrilled Nikao team that received their winning prize of $15,000 and danced in celebration just to show that the week of dancing hadn’t taken its toll on the young performers.”
(The Ministry of Cultural Development videos all the performances and DVDs are available on their website.)