Clement Paligaru: The dances of the Cook Islands are among the most energetic and sensual you'll find anywhere in the world. But dance is more than entertainment here - there's also a serious competitive edge.

Female performer: Dance is what portrays a Cook Islander.

Male performer: It's in our blood that whenever you grow up, you have to be a good dancer.

Female performer: Dancing - our culture is what makes who we are today.

Clement Paligaru: The Cook Islands has a number of distinct dance traditions.

Sonny Williams - Ministry of Cultural Development: The islands of Aitutaki, the middle islands, are known for their powerful drumming. The northern group of islands, Manihiki & Rakahanga, they love their high notes sounds and energised dancing. The island of Pukapuka comes with their own language, even their culture.

Clement Paligaru: Learning to dance is part of Cook Islands life.

Mapu Taia - Mauke Island elder: There is a program in the schools where these things are taught to young children. But sometimes the children are taught by their parents in their homes. They are also copy - children copy from the elders.

Female performer: You have to create your own movements based on the words in the song. When it's like the wind, you have to move your hands or your body like the wind.

Mapu Taia: By using the movement of the legs, and the motions of the hands, the expression of the body, gives that special feeling of belonging to the land, belonging to the islands and belonging to its traditions and customs.

Male performer: You fit in the hard work. Just to learn how to dance. Once you've learnt how to do it, it feels good having to go and show it to other people.

Clement Paligaru: Close to a thousand performers from ten outer islands and the main island of Avarua come to Rarotonga each year for the country's biggest dance competition as part of the annual cultural celebration Te Maeva Nui. They dance in teams, competing for their communities.

Julian Apuni - Mitiaro Island elder: We have to put everything into the competition. We always come down to Rarotonga, the capital, to show people, the listener of this country that we have our own culture, on our island.

Taoro Strickland - dance judge: we look at effectiveness, uniformity, the overall choreography.

Clement Paligaru: The choreography may be new but the techniques and costumes are traditional.

Vae Unuka - Aitutaki Island elder: As you can see, if you look at our skirts one is the blue which is the ocean- and one is the green which is the land and the boys represent the canoes which they are sailing.

Teina Etches - costume judge: When you are judging, we are looking at how its suits the dancer also. Could the dancer carry that particular costume? For instance in a drum dance, a costume can look beautiful. But could that dancer dance in it as a girl, or as a man ?

Taoro Strickland: It takes about two to three months of hard work of training and practice, of long nights and costume preparation. All this falls into place. It takes a couple of months. And it only takes seven minutes. You are only on stage for seven minutes.

Clement Paligaru: Not everyone agrees with the concept of a dance competition.

Mapu Taia: I don't really see that competition of culture is a good thing. Because we have our own special culture and another people has their own culture. Why compete about the cultures.

Sonny Williams: We tried some years ago to collect and preserve our oral history. But the old way of preserving that in the past was in a few selected oral historians, but the problem is when they die off, a whole range of history dies with them. For me, preservation in the public arena, the more people know about it, the better.

Male performer: It's very important. While we are so young we should learn our culture from the past, so we can carry it on as our tradition.