TRADITIONAL DANCE
Meke: Fiji's Tradition of Dance, Chant and Story
Meke is the umbrella term for Fijian dance, chant and storytelling — and it's a genuinely different tradition to the fire shows staged for visitors around Nadi.
See Fiji Fire Dance dates on GetYourGuide ↗What meke actually is
Meke is the general Fijian term for a traditional performance that combines chanted or sung poetry, choreographed dance, and storytelling — historically used to record history, legends, and significant events for communities without a written tradition. A meke isn't a single fixed routine; it's a broad performance form, closer in concept to "Fijian dance-theatre" than to any one dance style, and different villages and regions have their own repertoires passed down through generations of performers. Learning a village's meke traditionally took years of practice, since the movements, chant, and meaning all had to be transmitted correctly from elders to younger performers.
Different meke, different roles
Within meke there are recognised categories performed by different groups — men's war-style dances performed with clubs or spears (sometimes called meke wesi), women's fan dances performed with woven fans (seasea), and seated or standing forms that emphasise hand and arm movement over travel across the floor. The specific dances, costumes, and songs used are often tied to a particular village or occasion, which is part of why programmes at cultural shows can vary — you may see a different selection of meke depending on which community's performers you're watching.
Meke and fire dancing are not the same tradition
It's easy to lump meke and fire performance together at an evening cultural show, since they're often programmed back to back, but they come from genuinely different traditions. Meke is chant-and-dance storytelling performed across Fiji broadly, tied to no single island. Fijian firewalking (vilavilairevo) is a hereditary ritual specific to the Sawau people of Beqa Island. Fire-knife dancing, by contrast, developed in Samoa and is a modern Polynesian entertainment form rather than a traditional Fijian one at all. A well-run show should make these distinctions clear rather than presenting all three as one undifferentiated "Fijian fire dance."
The instruments behind the performance
Meke is traditionally accompanied by percussion and chant rather than melodic instruments alone — the lali (a carved wooden slit-drum) is used to set rhythm and signal the start of a performance, and group vocal chanting carries the storytelling forward. Many cultural evenings aimed at visitors add a string band playing guitar and ukulele-style instruments for a more contemporary, accessible sound between or alongside meke segments — pleasant listening, and often genuinely skilled musicianship, but a different register to the traditional chant-driven meke itself, so don't assume the string-band songs you hear are the meke.
What the dancers are actually depicting
A meke often tells a specific story — a legend, a historical event, a tribute to a chief, or an everyday theme like fishing or planting — expressed through synchronized movement and formation changes rather than abstract dance. Costumes, from woven masi (bark cloth) elements to shell ornaments and foliage, are chosen to suit the story being told rather than purely for visual effect. If a show offers any explanation of what a particular meke represents, it's worth paying attention — the meaning is usually the more interesting part, well beyond the spectacle of the choreography itself.