Evolution Of The Lakalaka Dance

Lakalaka is a dance form from the island Tonga, a small island between Australia and New Zealand. Lakalaka literally means, “to stride back and forth” and is one of the only Tongan dances to be considered truly indigenous (Shumway, 29). Lakalaka is a dance form that combines dance, poetry, and music to celebrate the “goodness of the Tongan way of life” (Shumway TWO, 468). I chose to research this dance because I know nothing about it and it seems to not be prevalent in many other countries besides Tonga. In researching Lakalaka I would hope to gain more knowledge about the dance and the Tongan culture.

The evolving of Lakalaka begins in 1845 when King George united the Tongan Kingdom after a long civil war. King George’s rule brought major developments that largely affected the country and still do today. One of these developments includes a large acceptance of Christianity with most people becoming Methodist. For the most part this was the largest Western influence the country has ever known compared to the rest of the Polynesian islands. At this point, Polynesia had lost much of its culture because of the influence of …show more content…
The dancers are split by gender, males on stage left and females on stage left. Every performer has on a plain shirt with a skirt along with flowery wristlets and anklets. Their costumes match in a very general way but each dancer seems to have their own individual style infused with their costume pieces. This specific video shows the art form in a competition setting, so the spacing is very specific and the dancers take plenty of time to make sure it is correct. However, I find it very interesting that the dancers do not take as much time in their costumes to match as we do in Western competition style dance. To me this says the art form is meant to be expressive for the