From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dance from Tahiti and the Cook Islands
The
t?m?r?
, or
tamoure
as popularized in many 1960s recordings, is a dance from
Tahiti
and the
Cook Islands
. Usually danced as a group of boys and girls, all dressed in
more
(the Tahitian
grass skirt
, however not made of grass but of the fibers from the bark of the
p?rau
, "
hibiscus
").
The boys shake their knees (as scissors, from there the use of the word
p??oti
(scissors) for this movement), and the girls shake their hips (and their long, loose hairs, if they have them). In reality the movement of their knees is the engine which drives their hips.
Their feet should stay flat on the ground and their shoulders should remain stationary. However traditionally in the Ote'a or Ura Pa'u, the hips in Tahiti are shaken round and round (in what is known as the fa'arapu) while in the Cook Islands, the hips are in a side-to-side movement. But due to the tamure, this emphasis is less important.
The movements of the hands is of secondary importance. The girls are largely standing still, the boys move around their partner, either facing her in front or hiding behind her back (as seen from the public). The tempo of the music is continuously increased up to the point where only the most experienced and fittest dancers can keep their shakings up. Depending on the performers, the sexual innuendo may be more or less obvious. The predecessor of the t?m?r?, the traditional
?upa?upa
was outlawed by the
LMS
missionaries for that reason.
T?m?r? is a foreign word, the name of a fish in the
Tuamotu
, the real name of the dance is
?ori Tahiti
(Tahitian dance).
Shortly after the
World War II
a soldier of the Pacific battalion, Louis Martin, wrote a song on a classic rhythm in which he used the word t?m?r? quite often as a tra-la-la. He afterward was known as T?m?r? Martin, and a new genre was born.
References
[
edit
]
- Patrick O'Reilly (1977).
Dancing Tahiti
. Nouvelles Editions Latines.
- Jane Freeman Moulin (1979).
The dance of Tahiti
. C. Gleizal/Editions du Pacifique.
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