Dances of Life by Catherine TatgeFor 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.