Fakanau

A fakanau (meaning "spells") is a traditional Tuvaluan male dance, accompanied by singing and rhythmic clapping. Fakanau singing and dancing are typical of Niutao and Nukufetau islands of Tuvalu, formerly known as the Ellice Islands, a group of nine low-lying coral islands in the central Pacific that are inhabited by Polynesian people. Fakanau is described as having "a tune that is between speech and singing [which] was performed while dancers are standing on their feet." Examples include Te onge ne tupu ia Kiollli, Neutuakina te vao i napanapa, and Ko na fakanau nei e kamata ifo mai gauta oi fakaholo atu ai ki gatai kafai te vaka e hoho ifo ki gatai. Other dances within the genre include the mako, the fakaseasea, the fatele, the lue, the sea, and the oga.¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Fakanau”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

Fakanau is music genre and type of dance, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 1 external register, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶