The first a part of Whenua closes with the voice of celebrated choreographer Rodney Bell (Ngāti Maniapoto), his phrases projected in purple throughout a slanting white display screen — “Ko au ko koe, ko koe ko au”: I’m you, and you might be me.
Connections to at least one one other and to the land are central themes of this hanging double-bill from the New Zealand Dance Company. The present, which received acclaim on its European tour earlier this yr, includes “Imprint”, choreographed by Bell and Malia Johnston; and “Uku — Behind the Canvas”, choreographed by Eddie Elliott (Ngāti Maniapoto). The inventive imaginative and prescient underpinning these thrillingly totally different items shines by in each the manufacturing’s technical points and its tremendously gifted performers (Katie Rudd, Brydie Colquhoun (Ngāti Kawa, Ngāpuhi), Bianca Hyslop (Ngāti Whakaue), ‘Isope ‘Akau’ola (Utulau, Lotofoa; Tonga), Kosta Bogoievski, and Jeremy Beck (Ngāi Tahu/Kai Tahu)).
Whenua is an engrossing expertise, rooted in Te Ao Māori and mixing conventional and fashionable kinds of dance in an revolutionary but accessible method.
We are guided into “Imprint” by a sequence of embraces. The dancers transfer amongst each other, wrapping their arms round every member of the corporate in flip; holding the form of that embrace after it has ended. Right away we’re launched to the center of the work — the indelible impressions individuals depart on different individuals and their environment, and which our environment depart on us. The performers show a powerful fluidity and management, added to at occasions by a mesmerising weightlessness. There’s each a sharpness and beauty to their actions as “Imprint” cycles by what is likely to be known as varied ‘phases’. Each one locations a single dancer centerstage, permitting them to indicate off their abilities earlier than returning once more to the collective.
These phases are heralded by transient soundbites, largely of Bell’s voice, and a musical transition. Eden Mulholland’s compositions embody calming nature-inspired sounds, choral preparations, and rhythmic modern beats. From the soothing to the staccato, the music traces the journey of the dancers by the piece. Rowan Pierce’s AV, spatial and lighting design is equally expressive. Slower sequences typically characteristic a kind of smoky lighting from above and both aspect of the stage, whereas a row of bulbs on the again flash on and off brightly through the extra frenetic moments. A recurring approach is using a highlight at one finish of the house, which the dancers lean into as if listening for one thing. I notably loved the second when two dancers swirled collectively behind the oblong white display screen in the course of the stage, their shadows blurred and multiplied; reminiscent once more of Bell’s phrases: I’m you, and you might be me.
The display screen performs a extra outstanding function than I’d initially anticipated, elevating and reducing at totally different factors within the piece. So, too, does the white fabric laid out onstage nearly ceremonially initially. It transforms satisfyingly from one thing the dancers dance on to one thing they dance with, later being gathered up beneath their toes and draped throughout their shoulders. It’s applicable that the set needs to be built-in into the efficiency on this method; linked collectively simply as physique and land are linked.
“Uku — Behind the Canvas” is a distinct beast, and feels just like the true headliner of Whenua. If the phrase I’d use to summarise “Imprint” is stream, “Uku” radiates energy. The heightened drama of this work is conveyed by a darker, starker stage than what we noticed in “Imprint”, with no display screen and as a substitute a backdrop resembling, fairly aptly, a canvas. Rona Ngahuia Osborne’s set design is complemented by Jo Kilgour’s lighting: quite a lot of the piece takes place in and round shadows. All of this invests “Uku” with a suitably mythic high quality. Drawing on the Māori creation story of Hineahuone, the primary lady molded from the earth by Tāne, it opens with the dancers crouched in a line on the entrance of the stage like creatures not but made. Through power and battle, they pull themselves up, or are pulled up by others.
There’s a solidity to the dancers’ actions all through that displays the uncooked, explosive nature of this work. Exploring inner and exterior battle and the place of tangata whenua, it’s the wāhine posing the query: “Is this my land?” I felt a larger sense of the narrative ‘arc’ of this piece, and was intrigued to search out the storytelling accomplished by the dancers’ voices in addition to their our bodies. “Uku” replaces their gentle exhales and exclamations in “Imprint” with a full-blown vocal efficiency, involving waiata (“Tai Aroha”) and haka. Eddie Elliott’s daring choreography calls for consideration; as does the music created with Jason Wright and Alistair Deverick, which capabilities as an efficient, typically ominous soundscape combining the primordial with the economic.
Most compelling is using clay, with the performers smearing it on themselves, each other, and the stage. An apparent reference to the earth out of which Hineahuone was shaped, the clay exhibits clearly on their darkish costuming (additionally by Osborne), enabling them to actually put on that story on their our bodies. The streaks of clay additionally inform the story of the bodily house, marking the place every dancer has been like a map. It’s a map that grows extra complicated because the piece builds in depth together with the dancers’ actions. At occasions they’re locked collectively; at others, they break aside violently. When that pressure is launched partway by the work, we’re handled to a playful metatheatrical interlude, involving the wāhine passing commentary on the tāne. That interlude acts as a shocking turning level, with the feelings ramping up much more strongly than earlier than. Yet regardless of its rage, or maybe due to it, “Uku” ends on a quieter observe — a dimming stage and a dancer’s tackle to Papatūānuku, confirming: “This is my home”.
Whenua performed the Q theatre the 10-Eleventh of April 2024