Gilbertese dancing
melanesian and Polynesian dance and music style

Gilbertese dancing, which is accompanied by singing, is a characteristic dance style of the Melanesians and the Polynesians. It is a fusion of folk and ballad dance forms. Rhythm in the music is accentuated by beating with hand the upturned wooden boxes. It is also called "I-Kiribati dancing". it was part of people's cultural identity; missionaries tried to suppress the dancing as they found it scandalous.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gilbertese dancing” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.