Solomon Islands dance is part of the culture of the Solomon Islands. Dances are performed at ceremonies and special occasions, as well as on a regular basis in some hotels and restaurants, which feature local musicians performing traditional songs and dance. The National Museum of Solomon Islands at Point Cruz also organises live dances and other cultural displays of its provinces.[ citation needed ]
In 1974, Polynesian Dances of Bellona (Mungiki), which included suahongi form and which had been forbidden to be performed during the 1940s by the Christian missionaries, was revived and recorded in Honiara. Suahongi, performed by men, is enacted at the conclusion of the manga'e ceremony, a ritual of sharing the surplus harvest of fish and garden crops. The dance is performed to songs which are set in the form of "feature call and response, speech–song" and highly rhythmic; music notes included the short history of the island of Bellona. [1]
At Rennel (Munggava) and Bellona (Mungiki), two islands administered by Solomon Islands, dance and music were banned by the missionaries, but revived during World War II. Suahongi (meaning a "circle", or to "hover about"), is an important dance form in the Bellonese tradition. It is a ritual dance which lasts for about half an hour, has three parts, and is performed by men. The first part, called the buatanga, is performed in circles while the other two parts are done in lines. [2]
Jane Mink Rossen revived this dance-music form and wrote about it in her book "Songs of Bellona Island (1987)". An LP of the same name, refers to it as "coordinate polyphony" of two songs rendered simultaneously. Other dances described by Rossen include Mako hakapaungo (a line dance performed by men with "fighting clubs and staffs"); Hua patti, a mixed type of dance; Mako hakasaunoni, which is performed by men folk accompanied by clapping of hands; mako nagangi, another dance form originating from Tikopia is known as ngongole. [2]
In Tikopia, the most formal festival dances occur during the monsoon season. Dance variations included Te mako e ta (the dance is beaten), mako po (clapped dances), mako rima (arm/hand dances), mako rakau (dances with wooden implements), and mako lasi (big dances). It has been said to Firth that, "The one work of Tikopia is the dance". He describes the 'dancing impulse' as being so strong in Tikopia that it is "almost obsessional behaviour". [3]
The funeral dance of the Solomon Islands was described by Henry Brougham Guppy in 1887:
With their faces white with lime they formed a large circle, in the centre of which were four posts placed erect in the ground, each about ten feet high, charred on one side and rudely carved in imitation of the human head, two of them painted red and two white. Enclosed in the ring and grouped around the posts were six women bearing in their hands the personal belongings of the deceased, such as her basket and cushion. To the slow and measured time of the beats of a wooden drum, a hollowed log struck by a man outside the circle, the dancers of the ring adapted their move merits, which consisted merely in raising the feet in turns and gently stamping on the ground. The central group of women danced around the posts, partly skipping, partly hopping, each woman holding up before her the article she bore, and regulating her steps to the beats of the drum. Now and then the man at the drum quickened his time, and the movements of the women of the ring became more spirited; whilst the central group of dancers skipped more actively around, the foremost woman sprinkled at each bound handfuls of lime over the dancers of the ring. [4]
The present rage in dancing style among the youth of the Islands is the "freestyle dancing" which has become integral to the night life and entertainment scene. These dance forms, with no resemblance to the traditional dance forms of Solomon Island, are copied from the films 'You Got Served', 'Step Up 1 and 2' and 'Stomp the Yard'. [5]
Dancing is often accompanied by bamboo bands, and panpipes are a popular accompaniment. [6] [7] Women are often topless while performing dance in the Solomon Islands; in some of the western islands, they may wear breechcloth made from blue-dyed tapa cloth as a wrap-around skirt. [8] In Tamate dance, performers wore whole body costumes made of bamboo with a curious mythological appearance.
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
The music of Solomon Islands has received international attention since before the country became independent from the United Kingdom in 1978.
Hula is a Hawaiian dance form expressing chant (oli) or song (mele). It was developed in the Hawaiian Islands by the Native Hawaiians who settled there. The hula dramatizes or portrays the words of the oli or mele in a visual dance form.
Rennell and Bellona is one of the nine provinces of Solomon Islands, comprising two inhabited atolls, Rennell and Bellona, or Mu Ngava and Mu Ngiki respectively in Rennellese, as well as the uninhabited Indispensable Reef. Rennell and Bellona are both Polynesian-inhabited islands within the predominantly Melanesian Solomons. They are thus considered Polynesian outliers. The first known European to sight the islands was Mathew Boyd of Camberwell, London, commander of the merchant ship, Bellona, in 1793. The province has a combined population of 3,041, the least populous province of Solomon Islands. The Samoic language of the islands is, in English texts, called Rennellese. The province's capital is Tigoa, on Rennell Island.
Giddha is a popular folk dance of women in the Punjab region. The dance is often considered derived from the ancient dance known as the ring dance and is just as energetic as bhangra; at the same time it manages to creatively display feminine grace, elegance and flexibility. It is a highly colourful dance form which has spread to all regions of India. Women perform this dance mainly at festive or social occasions. The dance is accompanied by rhythmic clapping, with a typical traditional folk song performed by elder women in the background.
The traditional music of Tuvalu consists of dances, including fatele, fakanau and fakaseasea. The influence of the Samoan missionaries sent to Tuvalu by the London Missionary Society from the 1860s resulted in the suppression of songs about the traditional religions or magic and many songs were lost. As the influence of the missionaries diminished in the 20th century the traditional dances were revived and the siva dance tradition from Samoa also became popular. The fatele, in its modern form, is performed at community events and to celebrate leaders and other prominent individuals.
Polynesian outliers are a number of culturally Polynesian societies that geographically lie outside the main region of Polynesian influence, known as the Polynesian Triangle; instead, Polynesian outliers are scattered in the two other Pacific subregions: Melanesia and Micronesia. Based on archaeological and linguistic analysis, these islands are considered to have been colonized by seafaring Polynesians, mostly from the area of Tonga, Samoa and Tuvalu.
Anuta is a small volcanic island in the southeastern part of the Solomon Islands province of Temotu, one of the smallest permanently inhabited Polynesian islands. It is one of the Polynesian Outlier communities in Melanesia.
Tikopia is a volcanic island in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It forms a part of the Melanesian nation state of Solomon Islands but is culturally Polynesian. The first Europeans arrived on 22 April 1606 as part of the Spanish expedition of Pedro Fernandes de Queirós.
Rennell Island, locally known as Mugaba, is the main island of two inhabited islands that make up the Rennell and Bellona Province in the nation state of Solomon Islands. Rennell Island has a land area of 660 square kilometres (250 sq mi) that is about 80 kilometres (50 mi) long and 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) wide. It is the second largest raised coral atoll in the world with the largest lake in the insular Pacific, Lake Tegano, a lake that is listed as a World Heritage Site. Rennell Island has a population of about 1,840 persons of Polynesian descent who primarily speak Rennellese, Pijin and some English. Rennell and Bellona Islands are two of the few islands in the otherwise Melanesian Solomon Islands archipelago classified as a Polynesian outlier; others being Sikaiana, Ontong Java, Tikopia, Anuta, Duff Islands, and some Reef Islands.
The culture of the Solomon Islands reflects the extent of the differentiation and diversity among the groups living within the Solomon Islands archipelago, which lies within Melanesia in the Pacific Ocean, with the peoples distinguished by island, language, topography, and geography. The cultural area includes the nation state of Solomon Islands and the Bougainville Island, which is a part of Papua New Guinea.
Sir Raymond William Firth was an ethnologist from New Zealand. As a result of Firth's ethnographic work, actual behaviour of societies is separated from the idealized rules of behaviour within the particular society. He was a long serving professor of anthropology at the London School of Economics, and is considered to have singlehandedly created a form of British economic anthropology.
Punjabi dances are an array of folk and religious dances of the Punjabi people indigenous to the Punjab region, straddling the border of India and Pakistan. The style of Punjabi dances ranges from very high energy to slow and reserved, and there are specific styles for men and women.
A shout or ring shout is an ecstatic, transcendent religious ritual, first practiced by African slaves in the West Indies and the United States, in which worshipers move in a circle while shuffling and stomping their feet and clapping their hands. Despite the name, shouting aloud is not an essential part of the ritual.
Rennell-Bellona, or Rennellese, is a Polynesian language spoken in the Rennell and Bellona Province of the Solomon Islands. A dictionary of the language has been published.
White River is a suburb on the fringe of Honiara, Solomon Islands and is located 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) west of the main center on the Tandai Highway. White River is in the Honiara City Council ward of Nggosi. A water spring supplies water to the community.
Honiara is the capital and largest city of Solomon Islands, situated on the northwestern coast of Guadalcanal. As of 2021, it had a population of 92,344 people. The city is served by Honiara International Airport and the seaport of Point Cruz, and lies along the Kukum Highway.
A tetratonic scale is a musical scale or mode with four notes per octave. This is in contrast to a heptatonic (seven-note) scale such as the major scale and minor scale, or a dodecatonic scale, both common in modern Western music. Tetratonic scales are not common in modern art music, and are generally associated with prehistoric music.
A fakanau is a traditional Tuvaluan male dance, accompanied by singing and rhythmic clapping.
