Eat island food while the fire knives fly

Read the evening

Eight customs a luau borrows

This is not the show's running order, which belongs to the performers and changes. It is a short glossary of the Hawaiian and Samoan customs a Polynesian dinner show draws on, so the evening is easier to read from your table.

Lei The welcomeHawaiʻi

A garland, usually of fresh flowers, leaves, ferns or seeds, worn round the neck. Lei are given to honour someone, and the habit of placing one on visitors arriving in or leaving Hawaiʻi is what made them known across the United States. Hula dancers wear them as headpieces, necklaces and anklets, and the first of May is kept as Lei Day.

ʻAwa and ʻava The bowlHawaiʻi · Samoa

Kava, a drink made from the root of a Pacific pepper plant, is ʻawa in Hawaiian and ʻava in Samoan. In Samoa the ʻava ceremony is among the most important customs: a solemn sharing of the drink, with speeches and a strict order of who drinks first, mixed in a wooden bowl called a tanoa. In old Hawaiʻi, ʻawa was offered to the gods of hula in return for knowledge and inspiration.

Imu and umu The ovenHawaiʻi · Samoa

The Hawaiian imu is an earth oven: a pit lined with heated stones and banana leaves, where food is covered over and left to cook for hours. Building one was hard work, so it was kept for special events. Cooking this way is called kālua. Samoa's umu works the same way but usually sits above ground, and it is still an everyday way to roast food there.

Hula kahiko The old styleHawaiʻi

Hula turns the words of a chant or song into movement. Kahiko is the form from before Western contact, danced to chant with old instruments like the gourd drum called ipu. Many kahiko honour a god or a chief, and the style is often austere. Missionaries who arrived in 1820 condemned hula and public performances were banned in 1830; King Kalākaua encouraged the old arts again during his reign, from 1874 to 1891.

Hula ʻauana The newer styleHawaiʻi

The name ʻauana means drifting or wandering, and this is hula as it changed under Western influence in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is danced to song with guitar, ʻukulele and double bass, and costumes lean towards dresses rather than leaves. In both styles the hands tell the story: a tree swaying in the breeze, a wave in the ocean, a feeling such as longing.

Sasa Seated rhythmSamoa

A Samoan group dance, usually performed sitting down, built on fast, exact claps and hand movements. The word means to strike. Each gesture stands for something from daily life, such as paddling a canoe, cooking or cleaning, and the whole line has to move as one. A leader's call of tulolo tells the group to bow their heads.

Siva and the taualuga GraceSamoa

Siva is the Samoan word for dance, and traditional siva asks above all for grace, with arms and hands moving subtly. Its high point is the taualuga, named after the last stage of building a house, when the topmost rafter is fixed. It often closes a celebration, and by tradition a chief's daughter or son danced it.

Siva afi FireSamoa

The fire-knife dance. A dancer twirls, throws and catches a knife with both ends burning, sometimes one knife and sometimes as many as four. It descends from the ailao, the warrior's display with a war club. A world fire-knife championship has been held every year since 1992, in the third week of May, and the dance now appears in island shows from Tahiti to Hawaiʻi.

Sources: Wikipedia's articles on the lūʻau, the lei, kava and the Samoan ʻava ceremony, the earth oven and kālua, hula, sasa, Siva Samoa, the taualuga and the fire knife.