The groups of dancers are mixed boys and girls, and their different costumes are dictated by the islands their families come from, so there’s a group from the Trobriands and a small group of 3 from the Highlands with amazing feathers and beads in their costumes. The dancing itself all looks the same to me – the 'King' and 'Queen' are presented first, then the main dance with the men hunting things and throwing their spears around and shouting a lot while the girls are very demure and elegant and don’t move very much at all – but then I don’t know enough to spot the subtle differences. The group from the Trobriands do a 'sex dance' (from the Yam Festival I guess, where everyone goes sex-mad for a week and the women are allowed to chase after any man they want!) which has a lot of hip-thrusting (not surprisingly) and goes down very well with the audience who laugh and scream at every pelvic twitch....

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