Associated, like tattooing, with nudity and sensuality and considered too suggestive, the Polynesian dance was banned by the missionaries in the 19th century. In the 1950s, this ancestral art regained its place among the Polynesian customs thanks to the oral, written and cinematographic transmission of the famous travellers and the creation of the first professional dance group 'Heiva' by Madeleine Mou'a.