Ura is one of the popular traditional dances of the Cook Islands, a Polynesian sacred ritual usually performed by a female who moves her body to tell a story, accompanied by intense drumming by at least five drummers. Moving the hips, legs and hands give off different gestures to the audience to tell a tale, typically related to the natural landscape such as the ocean and birds and flowers, but also feelings of love and sadness.^[1] The ura dance has three distinct components; the ura pa'u (drum dances), korero (legends) and kaparima (action songs).^[2] To perform the ura, women typically wear a pareu and a kikau (grass) skirt, with flowers and shell headbands and necklaces known as ei.^[2] Men during the dance are said to "vigorously flap their knees in a semi-crouched position while holding their upper bodies steady", and they typically wear kikau skirts and headbands.^[2] The drumming group, an integral part of the ura, typically consists of a lead drummer (pate taki), support lead (pate takirua), a double player (tokere or pate akaoro) playing wooden gongs, and two other players playing skin drums (pa'u and mango).^[1] The finest performances of the ura are put on in Rarotonga.^[3]

A sexually charged variant of the ura dance is known at the ura piani in which both men and women are involved in telling the story.^[2] Other variations include the ura rore (stilt dance), ura tairiri (fan dance), ura korare (spear dance), and ura rama (torch dance).^[2]

Bibliography

• Sissons, Jeffrey (1 January 1999). Nation and Destination: Creating Cook Islands Identity. [email protected]. ISBN 978-982-02-0142-2.
• Stanley, David (1999). South Pacific Handbook. David Stanley. ISBN 978-1-56691-172-6.