Wearing intricate costumes made of plants and adorned with tropical flowers, the women look spectacular. While their torsos remain completely still, somehow, impossibly, their hips are moving in circles so fast it’s almost a blur.
These women are performing traditional Tahitian dance, or Ori Tahiti, in Tahiti’s annual cultural festival, the Heiva. And they’re not alone. Thousands of women across the globe, from Mexico to Japan, are doing it too.
According to a report published by the French ministry of culture in 2017, there were more than 12,000 Ori Tahiti dancers in the United States and more than 10,000 in Latin America. In Japan, the movement has attracted 25,000 dancers and is projected to grow to 500,000 by 2027.
How dare this happen?
BTW, the idea that women swinging hips is specifically Tahitian will come as something of a surprise to several hundred thousand years worth of human beings.
I’m waiting for the Me Too moment when a torrent of abuse falls on the evil WHITE MEN!!!! who end up shagging——oops raping these poor girls. This will make it evident that these wicked blokes deliberately revived this obsolete custom to let them indulge in their immoral desires.
I saw such dancing in Hawaii Five O in the 1970s.
And it wasn’t Danno.
So cultural appropriation is good now? Tough to keep up….
Could be me, but I like the slow version better. Especially when combined with dropping veils.
Come to think about it…
The Arabian Nights dig is obvious.
I know of at least three tribal african female dances that do more or less the same…
There’s also documentation of women in amazonian Forgotten tribes doing something similar to give whoever they’re aiming at the Come-On..
Indonesian formal dance, check. Balinese dance, check. Australian aboriginee, check. Mongolian Formal matchmaking campfire dances… check.
( yes, biologist… we do Mating Rituals of all species..)
And every healthy bloke in his prime won’t miss the cock-and-wiggle of the Female Hip, especially if aimed at his direction..
So how the hell is it even possible to “culturally appropriate” this? It’s one of the deepest parts of the bits that we call Human. With a good case for Primate, period. It’s that old..
I had no idea, when holidaying in the Cook Islands, that they had appropriated their dances from the Tahitian Islands! I am sure I would have stormed off, or something.