). There was very little movement in the dancing. The men flexed their knees slightly, and the girls swayed their petticoats laterally; in some figures they swayed them backwards and forwards.
There were numerous figures, or separate small dances, in the Bulaa dances. In one that was often repeated the majority of the dancers formed a
shaped group, lads and lassies alternating; all these remained in their places. Other dancers, men only, advanced in couples, beating their drums and capering up the central space. In some figures the dancing men zigzagged across the space in a prancing manner as they proceeded up and down; in others they formed two parallel rows, all facing one side of the hollow oblong, and pranced sideways a few steps up and down the space. Then they jumped right round, so as to face the opposite way, and repeated the same process; then back again, and so on. In this dance the girls swayed their petticoats backwards and forwards.
In one figure groups of three—a man and two girls—stood in a series of rows. The active dancing men with drums came up and stood in a row along one side facing the others, and sang a song to the beats of the drums. After doing this three times, they ran round one end of the stationary column, and repeated the song on the other side, facing the others as before.
In another figure all the men and girls formed numerous short rows; this was, I believe, a Motu dance. The men in some of the figures formed a parallel row facing one another, with four others in the middle facing towards one end; the girls were at one end of the short avenue, and they swayed their petticoats laterally. The men then grouped themselves into two rows facing one another at right angles to the previous row. Then the first figure was repeated, only the two rows of men faced outwards instead of inwards, and the central pairs also reversed their previous position.
