Dances of Life (2005) watch online HD

For 50,000 years the peoples of the Pacific Islands have expressed and perpetuated their cultural values through dance. This unique form of artistic and historical expression has survived ocean voyages of thousands of miles, cyclones, volcanic eruptions, and internecine wars. But the greatest threat to their dance traditions came from European and American colonizers who disapproved of these "pagan" and "primitive practices" and attempted to destroy them. They almost succeeded. Until 1972, it appeared that this dance tradition would be wiped out entirely. But that year, the Conference of the Pacific Community decided "to combat the erosion of traditional customary practices" by organizing the first Festival of Pacific Arts. There have now been a total of eight Pacific Arts Festivals. Each of these events have built a steadily larger constituency for this art form. However, none of them, have been thoroughly documented on film so that these diverse cultures can be seen, understood, ...