DANZ QUARTERLY No 3 April 2006

Myth, Landscape and Language

by Francesca Horsley

Aarero Stone, the sole New Zealand dance production for this year’s NZ International Festival of the Arts, was a collaboration between three artists – performance artist Charles Koroneho, choreographer/dancer Carol Brown, and performance landscape designer Dorita Hannah.

The three artists explored landscape, ancestry – cultural and personal – their distinct world views and multiple voices. The work, commissioned by the Festival, came out of a long association between the three, with the final shape of the project honed through the internet and phone. Below are edited extracts from interviews with the three artists.

Carol :
“Dorita and I have been talking a lot about how to make work in the time of terror. When you look at ways to express what is going on in the world at the moment, I think returning to mythology or ancestral stories has often been a very powerful way - certainly in spoken theatre - to deal with contemporary issues.

“You see that a lot on the stage in London at the moment. Productions such as Julius Caesar or Medea are using these stories to tackle contemporary content. Because how do we express the inexpressible? That is one thing that stories do, they help us to orientate ourselves in the world and makes sense of what seems senseless.”

In my research I was interested in metamorphosis. It is something that has been around since ancient times, and mythologies carry many stories about metamorphosis. I have chosen stories about women who metamorphose into stone, because they are very transglobal stories. You will find them in many cultures throughout the world. What they mean in different parts of the world is very different. In ancient Greek and Roman mythology, women are turned to stone in punishment. One of the Maori stories I looked at is Hine Toa Hoanga - the sandstone woman. She performs a service for her son by turning her body into sandstone so that he can sharpen his adze on her back; metamorphosis as a celebration of plentitudes of embodiment rather than a way of being punished.

Dorita and I looked at a lot of media images and the way that grief was being represented around the world – particularly in light of terrorist attacks and the women or mothers who grieve. The images contain a certain idea of enduring lament. It makes these women look very archaic in a way. It is that combination of archaic and contemporary that we were interested in exploring in these stories.

Charles:
Aarero is the Maori word for tongue and also means pukana, a gesture in dance. Aarero is one of the most important things – it is gestural of expression of vitality, resistance, rebellion. Aarero is actually the spiritual protection of the warrior and is carved at the end of the taiaha - the fight staff. So Aarero has many connotations - the spiritual protection of the human body, the body of the warrior, of the performer.

When we were looking for a title I suggested Aarero Stone because the original name for the work was tongues of stone. Aarero has a different connotation and it;'s more NZ and Pacific orientated. It is also connected through the body and the land because of the whenua - the name for the land and the placenta.  So when I look at anything that’s stone or made of the earth, I think of the earth, of whenua.
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For me it’s the speaking landscape or language of earth mother – the language of Papatuanuku – so Aarero stone is really the landscape speaking, or ancestral stories. For me, Maui is an ancestor and a god – or demi god, but not a mythological being. Papatuanuku  is not a mythological being, it’s the earth  What I am bringing to the collaboration is Aotearoa speaking. It is the things that we lose and try to regain – the things that we try and retrieve from our past and our present, and the things we are trying to develop. Aarero stone is an opportunity to talk about where I come from, the talking landscape.

For me landscape has memories and sometimes it goes through a type of mourning or a type of loss or a remembrance – like Anzac Day. Most NZers knows its importance – all those people from world wars are gone and people are still celebrating – it is interesting. This is what I like about the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. It is another way to find those things that are really important about our land.

Dorita:
The idea of a performance landscape, as opposed to a traditional set, is that it is a set of environmental conditions rather than a scenic backdrop. The work references the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, with a dark shiny form and the reflective crosses on the floor. It is one of many influences in the design, but when Charles said he was interested in the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior I incorporated elements into the design – I deconstructed it really. The Tomb itself is a black granite monumental form that comes out of the steps that go up to Chapel, and set inside it are these crosses, on the diagonal.

Carol and I worked on a project last year in Athens called Her Topia: a Dance Architecture Event, and a lot of the work that came out of it is in this project. We worked with stones and reflections, and veils. Carol and I work very closely, and we write to each other, which is really interesting; we use a lots of words through telephone calls and emails, and I send lots of images. We have a particular affinity and accord because of our mutual interest in the performing body and architecture and have participated in workshops and seminars in Europe and we did a workshop last year in Wanganui.

As well as the overall design I am also involved with costume. I am very interested in detail, and finessing and distilling something right down to how it can be used essentially and flexibly. I have a very minimalist approach, it’s a minimalist aesthetic but it comes from layers and layers of ideas that are stripped right back. It is quite complex, even though it’s very simple. It is a form of performance that people don’t see so much in New Zealand.

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