Tahitian choreo-musical performance on cruise ships: staged authenticity and postmodern tourism

This paper investigates how identifiers of Tahitian culture are presented to cruise ship guests by means of choreo-musical performance. Three presentation methods are considered: dockside performance, the local show, and the Tahitian-themed production show. The processes of representation and performance to postmodern tourists, easily-assimilable surface representations rather than ‘authentic’ culture, is documented and discussed. This research concludes that such performances do create authentic signifiers of Tahitian culture despite the fact that they are created to be a touristic representation for cruise ship guests’ consumption.