One-on-One with Makau Foster
In the heart of the Tuamotu Archipelago, on the tranquil atoll of Hao, a young girl once spent her days marveling at the quiet miracles of life—watching crabs climb coconut trees, tracing the patterns of leaves in the breeze, and losing herself in the shifting light of the sea.
From a very young age, she understood what many spend lifetimes trying to grasp: beauty lives in the details, and magic begins with wonder.
Meet Makau Foster, a legend of ‘ori tahiti. And so much more…
Makau began dancing at the young age of four, guided by her grandmother and her own intuitive rhythm. Every time music played, Makau’s whole being would awaken.
Her joy was visible and contagious. Locals even gave her the sweet nickname of “Tataviri”, meaning “the one who moves,” just as if the lagoon tides whispered through her hips.
“I would wait for that moment when the music begins—everything would suddenly become magical,” she recalls.
But in a time and place where dance was not always welcomed, her expression sometimes stirred concern. When questioned by neighbors, her grandfather would simply reply:
“All is creation. Even dance.”
That one sentence became the seed of a life’s calling.
Many years later, Makau would carry that spirit into the founding of her dance school, Tamariki Poerani, in 1999. She named it in tribute to her island of Hao, known as the birthplace of Polynesia’s first black pearls—so exquisite, they were called poerani, “pearls from the sky.”
Makau’s mission has never been to teach dance as a technique. Rather, she teaches it as a path to harmony. To her, true dance emerges not from form, but from feeling—from the connection between muscle and memory, gaze and gesture, rhythm and reverence.
Under her precious guidance, her students learn how to be still with purpose, how to move with intention, and how to feel the story behind every note to the core.
In Makau’s classes, the body becomes a vessel, and the dance rises as an offering.
To describe what she offers through dance, Makau uses the word honoipo—a Tahitian term meaning communion, sacred union, or marriage.
“When you dance, you step into a world where everything is connected—what you say, what you hear, what you feel. You go inward, and by doing so, you embark others with you.”
Makau speaks of dance as a gateway to universal energy:
“It’s like little particles spreading through your body. It touches your heart, it shows on your face—you feel like you’re floating, like you’re truly yourself… and also part of something greater.”
Dancing becomes a bridge between earth and sky, self and spirit, past and present.
“I always tell my students—you don’t dance to be looked at.
You dance to give. You dance to offer others a feeling they may have forgotten they needed.”
Makau’s story reminds us that dance is not a performance but a return. A return to joy, to purpose, to presence. And through every hand lifted to the sky, every hip swayed to the beat of the ancestors, we are reminded that we, too, can become part of something timeless.
Source: Femmes de Polynésie
Photo credit: Tamariki Poerani
