The tautoga is considered the most formal and restrained style of Rotuman dance

Dance of Rotuma

Dance in Rotuma refers to the traditional and modern dance styles performed by the people of the island of Rotuma, which became a dependency of Fiji in 1881...

, usually seen performed in large festivities or ceremonies (called kato'aga

Kato'aga

Kato'aga is a broad term in the Rotuman language summing up all the intricate ceremonies and gatherings of Rotuman culture. In particular, it refers to the ceremonies involved in celebrating the achievements of people of high rank, or identifying their elevation to important positions of authority...

, a term summing up all traditional Rotuma

Rotuma

Rotuma is a Fijian dependency, consisting of Rotuma Island and nearby islets. The island group is home to a small but unique indigenous ethnic group which constitutes a recognizable minority within the population of Fiji, known as "Rotumans"...

n ceremonies), or in public opportunities to showcase Rotuman culture. The tautoga style can be seen as comparable to the Tuvalu

Tuvalu

Tuvalu , formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls...

an fatele

Music of Tuvalu

The traditional music of Tuvalu consists of a number of dances, most popularly including fatele, fakanau and fakaseasea, and were used to celebrate leaders and other prominent individuals...

 or Tonga

Tonga

Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...

n lakalaka

Lakalaka

The lakalaka is a Tongan group dance where the performers are largely standing still and make gestures with their arms only. It is considered as the national dance of Tonga and part of the intangible human heritage...

, and the "toga" ˈtoŋa sound to the word alludes to such an origin.

Performers

Dance groups in tautoga (called hafa, a loanword

Loanword

A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...

 referring to the halves of the dance group) can vary in number from 10 people to 100+ people, depending on availability of dancers and the scale of the event. The men and women usually arrange themselves in rows and in a rectangular shape, with men on one side, women on the other like the lakalaka, and also analogous to the Tongan dance, the most attractive and competent dancers stand in the front row centrally (this factor is referred to in Rotuman culture as "mạru") and these attributes decline over each row and column.

Male and female dance styles differ greatly, although their actions are synchronised and use similar shapes to evoke the words and feelings of the music to which they are dancing. Women's hand movements are generally slow and graceful, similar to the shapes made in Samoa

Samoa

Samoa , officially the Independent State of Samoa, formerly known as Western Samoa is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in...

n or Tonga

Tonga

Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga , is a state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over of ocean in the South Pacific...

n dance, and with their feet almost together, they make a subtle shuffling movement in time to the music, shifting weight from one foot to another. On the other hand, male movements are usually more vigorous and defined, with a more dramatic shifting of weight from one foot to another, enabled by having their legs usually further apart and somewhat crouching, such that the man half of a tautoga usually appears lower than the female half.

Costume

Dress code is usually quite uniform, with all members of the tautoga wearing a "hạ' fạli", which is analogous to a sarong or lava-lava, all of the same colour and design, as well as a collared shirts or blouses (a recent adaptation, probably a missionary addition, indicating respect for chief guests at functions). In addition to this, all members of the tautoga wear a sweet smelling flower in their ear, and a tefui

Tefui

Tēfui are the unique garlands of the Pacific Island, Rotuma. They are made by tying multiple "fui" , with modern adaptations using wool or ribbon. The number of fui used is dependent on the situation...

(traditional garland) and titi (a skirt of long leaves), both of which are more elaborate and decorated for men than they are for women. In some instances dance groups are known to have worn the tailfeathers of the "täväke" bird (White-tailed Tropicbird

White-tailed Tropicbird

The White-tailed Tropicbird Phaethon lepturus, is a tropicbird, smallest of three closely related seabirds of the tropical oceans and smallest member of the order Phaethontiformes. It occurs in the tropical Atlantic, western Pacific and Indian Oceans...

).

Performance Styles

Tautoga are usually performed in a suite of dances structured around three main types: "sua", "tiap hi'i", and "tiap forau". The dancing is accompanied by a group of singers who sit at the back, beating a pile of mats with large drumming sticks.

Sua

For the sua, dancers stand in place: men, with their feet apart; women with their feet together. The basic movement involves lifting the hands from the side, clasping them together in front of the waist, and releasing them to the sides; the dance also requires the alternate bending and straightening of the knees.

Sua normally consist of four-verse stanzas, whose texts allude to the occasion. The music consists of a single phrase in duple meter, repeated many times. All performers sing the same melody, but in parallel fifths: the women take the upper part; the men, the lower. Often, singers sound other notes, to create three- or four-note harmonies.

Tiap hi'i

After the sua come the tiap hi'i, dances of two kinds. In one, hi tägtäg 'languid hi' the women sing "hi'ie, hi'ie, hi'ie, hi'ie," while the men grunt to the effect of "hui'i, hui'i, hui'i, hui'i". The performers focus on a major triad, with the men singing the root, and women singing the third and fifth; a subdominant triad serves as an auxiliary. The performers clap their hands on downbeats. In the other kind of tiap hi, the hi sasap 'sustained hi', the men drag out the "hui" more. In both subgenres, some of the singers breathe while others vocalize, so the music spins a continuous thread of sound.

As in the sua, the women remain stationary while performing the tiap hi; they confine their movements to graceful, subtle hand motions. The men may jump from side to side, or in circles. In the tiap hi, the contrast between women's constraint and men's vitality becomes strongly marked. In one version of the genre, the men maintain a textless drone, while the women sing four or eight verses, recounting legends. In the sua and the tiap hi, each of the first three rows of dancers takes its turn in front; after completing a set of verses, the dancers in the first row drop back, to permit the row behind them to come forward (Hereniko 1991:128-130).

Tiap forau

Tiap forau offer a performative contrast: sua and tiap hi have a more restrained character; but lively yelping and clowning punctuate tiap forau. Spectators may spontaneously get up and join in the performance. During the dance, the back row splits: the men come down one side of the group, the women down the other, until they join in front, replacing the first row. The process continues until each row has had its turn in front. Songs usually acknowledge distinguished personages, especially the chiefs acting as hosts; the texts praise people whose labors have contributed to the event (Hereniko 1991:130-131). Many tiap forau are in duple meter, but some are in compound triple meter (transcribable as 6/8 time).

Tautoga may include from one to three sua, one or two tiap hi, and two or more tiap forau; for a complete performance, at least one example of each type must occur. A group of elders provides accompaniment for the sua and the tiap forau: with wooden sticks, they beat on a pile of folded mats. They begin each dance by introducing the song, and take responsibility for sustaining the rhythm and tempo.

In the late 19th century, a missionary described the songs of tautoga as sung in unison, except when both men and women participated. In the latter case, the men sang in a lower range, about a fifth lower, without following the melody closely. The rhythm changed little between the different songs. Most were characterized as "andante," but some songs, on humorous themes, were "allegro." The melody consisted of three or four different notes, the first note repeated three or four times, followed by a note a third higher, returning to the first, again repeated three times, followed by a higher or lower note, finishing with "an unharmonious flat note" (Müller, cited in Gardiner 1898:491).