Severed from their original context by the 1880s, dances with paddles continued in secular setting, where they highlighted special celebrations. Men's skirts and garlands are more elaborately decorated than women's. Rotumans perform a tautoga . Photo by Alan Howard, 1960. The basic movement involves lifting the hands from the sides, clasping them together in front of the waist, and releasing them to the sides.
Dancers repeatedly bend and straighten their legs.
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. The performers sing a melody in parallel fifths, with women on the upper part. After sua come tiap hi , dances of two kinds. A subdominant triad serves as an auxiliary.