East Polynesia

Beginning in the 1950s, French Polynesia experienced intense, accelerated social transformation. Islanders responded by adapting their performances to common artistic values, expectations, and aesthetics. Outsiders sometimes reproach Tahitians for supposedly commercializing the arts during this period; Tahitians, however, portray these years as ones when they restored the beauty and dignity of their music and dance , established these traditions in a global world, and searched for authenticity...