Dance
Luminous Even In Darkness
by Francesca Horsley
Tempo, the Auckland Dance Festival, showcased works that charmed, unsettled, affirmed. Michael Parmenter’s Nightingale Fever was a polished piece that told the story of making a work for the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2001. But it was the richness of Parmenter’s voice and the eloquence of his words rather than the dancing that lingered in the mind. He compared his choreographic process to a Terror Ride at a theme park – from the lofty, heady vision of artistic inspiration to a violent plummet into constriction, frustration and desperation.
Parmenter was relaxed, witty and wry, clearly enjoying the retelling of this horror story. With a chair as his sole prop, he related the gathering of material, beginning with the extra-ordinary serendipity that released the work’s theme – the heartbreaking 8th String Quartet by Shostakovich – from a mislabelled CD. Parmenter’s muse connected to the composer’s sense of abandonment and isolation and that of fellow Russian artists – poets Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Pasternak and Mandelshtam. Their plight flowed into Parmenter’s grief over loved ones lost to AIDS, and the guilt and gratitude of survival. Other synchronicities came into play, and the work had shape and a name – Empty Chairs.
Talking and dancing at the same time, Parmenter revealed his tricks to release movement from improvisation, told of the dissatisfaction of rehearsals, related conversations with the artistic director and frustrations bellowed at dancers. In his characteristic flowing movement, he effortlessly went from floor to chair, barely catching his breath as he continued the narrative. His dance fragments that interpreted the four Russian poets left a yearning to see the fully realised ballet – but this window into the choreographer’s process was an impressive theatrical work.
Atamira Dance Collective’s Ngai Tahu 32 was magnetic from its opening moments in the Town Hall Concert Chamber. A black stream of water with tukutuku patterns, projected from above, stretched lengthwise along the theatre floor. An image of a waterfall played on the back wall and dancers – tupuna (ancestors) – lay along the water’s edge, half submerged. The audience flanked the stream on three sides.
This linear waterway was the trajectory for choreographer Louise Potiki-Bryant’s whakapapa, in particular the lives of three of her ancestors. Their stories of struggle, failure and hope flowed through the water – a perfect medium to project the work’s layers.
The story began with Wi Potiki and the sale of his land in Otago in the mid-19th century for a handful of coins. Danced by Maaka Pepene, the landless Potiki gradually lost his grasp on life. He was accompanied and watched over by his wairua, Justine Hohaia. Powerful imagery connected the work: nets pulled along the stream, ropes snaring dancers, the emergence of the embryonic spirit of hope, Hineiteataariari.
Although the work ended in renewal, it was deeply elegiac. Te Ata, dark shape shifters danced alongside the stream, a kuia passed on her wisdom to her granddaughter, the survival of the wairua was never assured. The music by Paddy Free (Pitch Black) carried grief, the sea, voices speaking assuredly of whakapapa. Potiki-Bryant’s clever video suggested waterfalls, ferns, faces and soft turning hands. The dancers, in and out of cold water on a cold night, performed without a shiver. Although the extended stage granted Potiki-Bryant new freedom, it also constrained some of the choreographic expression. But her mastery of singular images was assured; and told from the heart, the story was mesmeric, powerful and moving. This work signals a new level of artistry for Potiki-Bryant.
Late Night Choreographers always brings a selection of experimental work and this year the five choreo-graphers had all upped their game.
Volume 2, a duet by Anja Packham, was finely balanced. Interpreting shamanic concepts of affinity and disparity, dancers Packham and Alexa Wilson were blindfolded throughout the performance. In the first section they danced apart, at first constricted and then whirling as the music reached a crescendo. The second section was delicate – as cat and deer, they moved in unison, subtly changing direction and pace, shifting leader and follower.
An investigation of interior and exterior personal landscapes, wherever was a bleak, disturbing interactive video and dance work choreographed by Brent Harris. As if in a slow-motion nightmare, solitary men lay in an empty warehouse, manipulated by an outsized PlayStation or transformed into clone holograms.
A feminist take on romance, Acts of Love, by Wilhemeena Gordon, was a sexy, funny ensemble piece. A fleeting video image of a woman dressed in white and moving through moonlit trees cast a spell of love and mystery. Gradually, this was undone, as two women and three men moved from passion to disharmony.
Being Somebody, by Min Kyoung Lee, was a light-hearted treatment of present-day banalities. The audience was supplied with Walkmans, all with different music; a video projected a stream of statements – “I am creative, I am somebody” – while Wilson and Paul Young danced and jumped in front of the screen, at odds with both the visual wordplay and the music.
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