Don't come to the South Pacific islands expecting opera and ballet, or Las Vegas-style floor shows, either. Other than pub-crawling to bars and nightclubs with music for dancing, evening entertainment here consists primarily of island nights, which invariably feature feasts of island foods followed by traditional dancing.
In the cases of French Polynesia and the Cook Islands, of course, the hip-swinging traditional dances are world famous. They are not as lewd and lascivious today as they were in the days before the missionaries arrived, but they still have plenty of suggestive movements to the primordial beat of drums. By contrast, dancing in Fiji, Tonga, and the Samoas is much more reserved, with graceful movements, terrific harmony, and occasional action in a war or fire dance.
Weekend Pub Crawling: Fundamentalist Christians may own Sundays in the islands, but Friday and Saturday nights definitely belong to the sinners. That's because bar-hopping -- or pub-crawling as it's known out here -- is the thing to do after dark on weekends. Every island has its favorite bars, which are packed until the wee hours on Friday night, until midnight on Saturday. There's a dark side, however, for fights can break out, and drunken driving is a problem on those nights.
French Polynesia: Hotels are the places in which to see Tahitian dancing. The resorts rely on village groups to perform a few times a week. The very best shows are during the annual Heiva i Tahiti festival in July; the winners then tour the other islands in August for minifestivals at the resorts.
The Cook Islands: Although the Tahitians are more famous for their dancing than the Cook Islanders, many of their original movements were quashed by the missionaries in the early 19th century. By the time the French took over in 1841 and allowed dancing again, the Tahitians had forgotten much of the old movements. They turned to the Cook Islands, where dancing was -- and still is -- the thing to do when the sun goes down. In the Cooks the costumes tend to be more natural and less colorful than in the Tahitian floor shows, but the movements tend to be more active, suggestive, and genuine. There's an island night show every evening except Sunday on Rarotonga. The best troupes usually perform at the Edgewater Resort and the Rarotongan Beach Resort, but ask around. The best public performances are during the annual Dancer of the Year contest in April and the Constitution Week celebrations in August.
Samoa: Among the great shows in the South Pacific are fiafia nights in the magnificent main building at Aggie Grey's Hotel in Apia. This tradition was started in the 1940s by the late Aggie Grey, who at the show's culmination personally danced the graceful siva. Nowadays the show includes a rousing fire dance around the adjacent pool.
Tonga: The weekly shows at the Tongan National Centre are unique, for this museum provides expert commentary before each dance, explaining its movements and their meanings. That's a big help, since all songs throughout the South Pacific are in the native languages.
