DANZ QUARTERLY No 1 September 2005

Reviews

Circular Linear Motion - Expanding, Contracting Light and Sound

Soma Songs - Daniel Belton and Good Company
Dunedin Public Art Gallery Auditorium
24 & 25 June 2005
Reviewed by Bronwyn Judge

Soma Songs is an unusual and riveting work involving acclaimed international artists from various media. Unlike conventional dance performances, the live element is the presence of the technical wizards: image resampler and projectionist New Zealander Jac Grenfel and audio resampler and composer Jan-Bas Bollen from Holland. British dancer Tom Ward and Daniel Belton greatly add to the success of the piece when they appear as digital footage.

It would not do it justice to call it simply a dance work, although the performance is devised by choreographer Daniel Belton and Good Company. There is in fact no live dance as such, Daniel and Jan-Bas provide live music, using sensor sound to accompany an intricate engrossing film show that covers three large projection screens. The screens are filled with examples of Greek architecture, building blocks and dancing figures in a dizzying progression of morphed images retaining just enough information to be recognisable and yet altered to a degree that requires an audience's serious focus and involvement to read.

The most impressive aspect of this performance is the superb integration of every element into the whole. Even the graphics of the title are spelt out in computer-generated circles and lines for the opening screen shot. There is an
intriguing play between what is real and what is virtual and this is carried through different layers of the work. Dancers spectacularly spin upside down with ease while set design modules are carried as if they are weighty blocks of Oamaru stone and are shifted with apparent difficulty.

It is essentially a monochromatic piece but the senses are assaulted, such is the speed and complexity with which the artwork is projected. A shorter programme would lose nothing in interest but would leave an audience a little less
stunned. While the Royal New Zealand Ballet with horror ballets like Dracula seek to attract young male viewers, which is the apparent audience demographic for horror films.

Belton has taken another tack entirely but with a similar audience in mind. Soma Songs could be termed intellectual in content. It doesn't really touch the lush landscape of the emotions and is definitely a masculine work. The next project in the pipeline is apparently a female version. It is tantalising to anticipate whether it would do as much for defining gender specific dance as this choreography of architecture and the human form in constant circular and linear motion, cradled by waves of expanding and contracting light and sound.

Enigmatic, Urban, European – such a lovely place

Lost Property
Claire O’Neil, Fidget Dance Company
TAPAC, Auckland
15 & 16 June2005
Reviewed by Sue Cheesman

Lost Property begins with a theatrical unveiling of the musician and visual operator behind a table laden with high tech gear. This was closely followed by Claire O’Neil, the choreographer and dancer, with Eden Mulholland, the
composer, in opposite corners of front stage taking turns to plug in, light up and sing into standing mics, a very amusing rendition of the Eagles hit Hotel California. Most of us laughed and sang along but why this song?

The programme note states “Lost Property follows the effort of several people who are caused to meet and destined to separate”. The performance seems to me to be a series of vignettes, sometimes linked and on other
occasions but ting up against each other as if sliced into sections of different thicknesses of completely random materials. To bear witness to this very European sensibility was invigorating, challenging, yet exciting.

All the performers worked mainly in their specialist areas, however they did switch between dancing, singing, acting with ease giving a foundation and cohesion to a piece which otherwise bombarded us with a multiplicity of images in this urban culture, packed with dislocation and disconnection. The stage space was cleverly sectioned and
transformed according to its various uses, becoming a microcosm for that time reference point. White light in the forms of light bulbs, screens, and video projection recurs throughout diffusing into lines, colours and realism - traffic captured blurs, a sort of sped up reality assaults us. The performers walking down a tree-lined road, switch realities as these characters tumble into the live space to continue their journeys of meeting and parting. Strong use of unison and clever repetition in group work give the dance cohesion. Fleeting relationships reform and
dissolve as the collages are manipulated and transformed, reshuffling our already blurry reference points.

Strong images leave their traces on my memory in the form of Kelly Nash’s luscious spinning across the floor, Paul Young being repeatedly bombarded with flying bodies desperately clinging to him, Clare’s different dance dynamic enthused with her years abroad, and Jon Brazier’s brilliant performance and embodiment of his roles. Unfortunately Francisco Rodriguez’s notes on Lost Property were heady and full of post modern philosophical jargon - obscure to most I suggest. However, Clare O’Neil of Fidget, does not leave it to long to come back and share this kind of enigmatic performance art with us - “ pink champagne on ice … we are all prisoners here of our own device you can check out anytime you like but you can never leave”

Cause for Celebration

Home Is Where The Heart Is
Footnote Dance
Herald Theatre, Auckland
13 & 14 June 2005 (subsequently other centres)
Reviewed by Briar Wilson

There are so few dance organisations that reach their 20th anniversary; it’s wonderful to be able to congratulate Footnote for coming up with such an entertaining, interesting and well danced programme to show off its young
dancers, and also for its all New Zealand choreographic and music policy. Company Director and founder, Deirdre
Tarrant – who has given so much of her time and energy to dance – started the show with her piece Outside the Square. It featured all the dancers and showed how the company does its day job, putting dance into schools, with
number games, patterns, cartons, a bit of hop scotch – all to lively music.

Katharina Waldner continued her interest in
paper shopping bags in Plumage with a rework of Slip, an earlier work for Footnote. This was a short piece, referencing the person who is different; bags got worn on head and on feet! Dancer Lance Riley’s duet Caught in the Moment was also quite short, romantic in a traditional, flowing way. Riley danced the male role, including some lifts coming off swinging movement. How Ugly is That Duckling was the most memorable piece in the show being different and unexpected. In light-hearted mood, Raewyn Hill went further into her use of the spoken word. Dancers in evening dress danced and acted out the old fable read by Lance Riley (with whiskers). The women did their hair up,
applied heavy make up, (one looking clownish), but this humorous dance was more about finding out who you are than becoming one of the beautiful people.

In contrast, Moana Nepia’s piece, Quintet was abstract and serious. Despite a certain drama coming from the use of red and lighting from the side, the overwhelming impression of this longer piece for five dancers was of fluid
movement, and with generally slow rhythms. Ex-pat, award-winning Jeremy Nelson’s Mursh Mellow, did not really stand out despite sophisticated movement, but then it is described as a work in progress. Perhaps the prickly music did not help. The dancers dealt well with demanding configurations and accompanying staccato sound. But it was a relief to get unison at last, even if only with three of the four dancers. Moss Patterson’s Kura (or Red) was ideal to
close the programme. An energetic piece, it required of the dancers (two in black contrasting with three in red), strict placement to achieve the patterns. The non-stop movement was so well-planned, the end was prefigured, and thus satisfying.

Taking Your Socks Off – and Dancing

Dance Your Socvks Of festival 2005
Reviewed by Lyne Pringle

The award-winning festival Dance Your Socks Off! about to hit the streets of Wellington this
September has almost 60 dance events to delight audiences.

The month-long dance party features something for everyone with a variety of classes,
performances, and workshops on offer. Highlights include dance film screenings at The Film
Archive, the show A right royal GALA and a night of retro funk and wheels at the Roller Disco.
The show A right royal GALA, will feature some of New Zealand’s most illustrious performers
including Sir John Trimmer and Kerry Anne Gilberd. They and other guests are creating a
collection of theatrical gems from Broadway to ballet. It will be an unforgettable night of glamour.
There will also be tango, hip hop, contemporary, line dancing, contact improvisation, Polish
dance, swing, rock and roll or Scottish country dancing classes on going throughout the festival.
One initiative is the “Our Dances in a New Land” project, which is a rich and vibrant cultural
dance development project by DANZ (Dance Aotearoa New Zealand) and The New Zealand
National Commission for UNESCO with members of recent migrant and refugee communities of
Wellington. It is also supported by Te Papa and Wellington City Council.

There will be two performances: one a fundraiser is to be held at Government House, on
September 8; the other is a free multicultural dance concert at Soundings Theatre, Te Papa.
The aim of the project is to show the beauty and depth of the cultures’ performing arts and what
cultural richness migrants and refugees can bring to their new home country.

The cultural nuances of concert items will be interpreted for the audience to enhance cross
cultural understanding. Community Dance Development facilitation and interpretation will be lead
by Jennifer Shennan, Dance Anthropologist, teacher and writer and supported by Dr Tania
Kopytko Exec Director of DANZ (PhD Dance Anthropology).

Enigmatic, Urban, Miniatures - Playing with Space

Miniatures choreographed and directed by Malia Johnston
Produced by Outlaw Creative
Auckland Concert Chamber 23 – 25 June 2005
(subsequently Wellington, Christchurch, New Plymouth)
Reviewed by Dagmar Simon

Before starting their national tour, dancers Maria Dabrowska, Julia Milsom, Sarah Sproull, Jacob Sullivan, Liana Yew, Paul Young and Malia Johnston treated Auckland with a short season of Johnston’s work Miniatures.

Miniatures combines great entertainment, hilarious moments, innovative dancing and clever use of performance space and props. Eden Mulholland’s original music adds to the piece and strongly supports the dancing. The
sound of heavy persistent rain at some point gelled not only the movement and the music together, but also tied the whole event appropriately in with the rainy winter environment the audience had gladly escaped from.

In Miniatures limited spaces are constructed and deconstructed, sometimes in a playful manner, at other times with an odd seriousness. What is unfolding in front of the audience is sometimes reminiscent of a cartoon, sci-fi (or a take-off on it), or a surreal chess game with live figures. All of this is presented in a witty and fresh way.

In the opening scene the dancers appear one after the other on top of what looks like a broom cupboard, then they slide down its side, only to enter through the front door and disappear, eventually reappearing on top. All
this suggesting a mysterious world behind, whose raisons d’etre seem obscure.

The most surreal scene with stunning movement is the ‘bath tubs scene’. It could have come straight from a sci-fi movie: three dancers moving with amazing limpness as if they were surrounded by jelly, in a distorted time-space continuum, trance-like, but nevertheless sensual. All of this is happening to bubbling sounds in the music. This fascinating otherworldly scene gets even more hilarious when these odd alien creatures stop moving to watch with a baffled expression the tantrum-like dance of another dancer in the broom cupboard, as if his behaviour was extremely weird. Slapstick at its best!

A further hilarious scene contains an alien language (could it have been English backwards?) and a scene where catching flies turns into a dance. In yet another part, thrilling partner work is executed while negotiating the space on top of and around some big boxes. During the few sequences when the dancers abandon their restricted locations they conquer space with vengeance, fiercely throwing arms and piercing long legs into space as if to make up for the earlier restrictions.

The female dancers impress with the amazing‘dance of the back muscles’, which is performed on minuscule boxes. Their display of balance and control while isolating their back and shoulder muscles finally develops into an image of flying. Their clever u se of (almost) nudity is just as dignified as the quality of these albatross-like movements.

Miniatures proves that it’s indeed possible to dance exquisitely in the most limited spaces. It keeps our interest right through the performance, as space, props, directions and patterns are constantly shifting. Not a moment of boredom!

Stars In Their Feet:

National Adult, Senior And Professional Dancesport Championships
Westpac St James Theatre
Commentary by Diana Plesovs

The Championship
This championship is the highlight of the New Zealand DanceSport year, hotly contested by entrants from throughout the country and overseas. This year it was held at the Pioneer Stadium, Christchurch from 30 & 31 July.

The highlight of any championship is the overseas guests. Jonathan Wilkins and Katusha Demidova, United States Professional Ballroom and Showdance Champions, showed what dedication to dance means, with a flawless
performance to huge acclaim. Harley Baas and Tatiana Ostapovich from Sydney, won the Latin American A grade and Open Championships. Representing New Zealand in June this year at Blackpool, England, the Mecca of Ballroom Dancing, Harley (a Kiwi) and Tatiana showed an excellent 72 from 450 couples worldwide.

Paul Willetts (20) and Sarah Wilson (19) also showed star qualities by getting into the finals of the A Grade and Open Latin American events. This couple shows a great deal of promise. They also enjoy being ambassadors for the sport through demonstrations at other events, giving Dancesport a higher profile.

Local Dancesport Association competitors also demonstrated their styles and achievements. Junior couple Christopher Eades (14), and Samantha Malloch (13), not only won a local talent quest and substantial prize money with their dancing during the recent school holidays, but they also won three Junior titles in Standard, Latin American and New Vogue (sequence style).

While some of the participants from the recent TV series Dancing with the Stars came to watch, others competed
Why Ballroom Dancing is a Sport The energy required for Dancesport was obvious from watching Dancing with the Stars participants puffing after their events.

Competitive Ballroom Dancing, as distinct from the leisure activity, has recently beEn renamed throughout the world as “dancesport” (the sport of competition) dancing. Dancesport has a highly organised international competition
structure and is conducted at the highest competitive level. It is a nticipating inclusion as an Olympic sport.
Dancesport competitors require a considerable amount of stamina and fitness. From an athletic viewpoint, it has been demonstrated that the muscle exertion (measured by the production of lactic acid) and breathing rates of competitors performing one competition dance of around two minutes, were equal to those of cyclists, swimmers, and an Olympic 800 metre runner over the same period of time. And, this is while being immaculately groomed, looking elegant, smiling, avoiding other couples on the dance floor, with the lady spending a lot of time going
backwards and in high heels!

Flying with the Gods

Maui: one man against the gods
St James Theatre, Wellington 28 May
Reviewed by Anna Chapman

Maui: one man against the gods is the brain child of Tanemahuta Gray who has combined elements of kapa haka, aerial work, contemporary dance and hip-hop (– or was it rap?) to bring the legends of Maui to life in te
reo Maori.

I saw one of the initial performances of the work in progress that has evolved and progressed into Maui: one man against the gods. The performance then was a rough diamond, but the potential was clear, and as with any diamond, the cutting and polishing reveals the inner brilliance.

Two years have made a world of difference to Maui. The casting was crucial to the overall success of the production, and the leads were great. Toni Huata as Hine-Nui-Te-Po was a brooding presence throughout the production – and my favourite. Her presence, whether on the stage or suspended above it was compelling. The character of Maui was integral to the production and Tamati Te Nohotu embodied the character well. As a young man, confused by the mortal world and the antipathy of his siblings, and challenging the realm of the gods, his performance worked. Toa Waka as Tama- Nui-Te-Ra played the proud and ultimately betrayed father well. Mere Boynton as Taranga was gentle and proud.

The brothers of Maui were a breath of humour with their antics. Their every emotion was shown on their faces; from jealousy as they came to terms with the arrival of the unknown but cherished brother, to relief as they survived the uplifting of Te Ika a Maui.

From the beginning, it was apparent that the story telling would be different. The aerial work was beautiful, weightless and enchanting. Thanks to the well-publicised feats of Cirque du Soleil in New Zealand, it isn’t as novel as it once was, but in this context it was a new and exiting dimension, used well to supplement the story telling.
The ensemble work was clean and tight. The experience of the group in both contemporary dance and kapa haka showed as they moved well between the two forms. The ensemble was used to enhance the story telling. The
costuming of the ensemble let it down at times, being too literal and distracting, when the skill of the dancers alone would have been sufficient. The set offered a number of levels and angles for the story telling and this was used to full advantage throughout. It was simple and evocative, which seemed to be a theme for many of the components of this production.

Lighting and sound were both also highly complementary to Maui. The end of the production did not support the
preceeding build up; it felt flat and inconclusive. The production team acknowledged that this premiere season of Maui was another step in the production and work-shopping process. When the show opens in Auckland in February
2006, I highly recommend that people give it a go – a New Zealand story, put together by New Zealanders, told in a uniquely New Zealand way – and did I say that I thoroughly enjoyed it?

Inspector Ryan Probes Film Noir

The Mystery of the Disappearing Body
choreographed and directed by Guy Ryan
produced by Outkaw creative
TAPAC, Auckland 21 – 28 May 2005
Reviewed by y Sue Cheesman

Two sets of wooden planks hinged together play cat and mouse coming towards us to very clever effect. Subsequently they transform the space becoming doors, frontages, corridors, windows, boxes, enclosed spaces, shelters, rooms from which dancing bodies partially/fully disappear and reappear. At one point a saloon
bar frontage forms complete with neon signs and a strip window revealing parts of the female dancers bodies for us to peer at. Lighting throughout was excellent - subdued giving the illusion of dimly lit rooms, dark alleys, all
without the use of bright colours, adding to the film noir atmosphere.

The classic ‘who done it’ tools – magnifying glass, old fashioned telephone ringing, outline of a body, and men and woman in suits and dresses were present in varying guises. A body lying on the ground, its outline taped, giving a
stark reminder of terrorism and street shootings, where it is commonplace to have the road pavement painted around the fallen.

The Mystery of the Disappearing Body had many connections to film noir – the detective/mystery films of the 1930/40s era - dim lighting and 1930s music samples. One very strong image was when Malia Johnston is manipulated like a mechanical doll who has articulated joints as she is lifted and shifted around the space. This motif returns with Michael Parmenter being manipulated – one is never sure of “who done what”? Like all good mysteries the narrative is complex, convoluted and the journey is a maze of twists and turns, appearances and disappearances.
Hinting at the transient nature of dance existing only in a moment is further expanded by Guy’s comments in the programme note “we are always arriving and departing in any given moment. Our bodies are always disappearing”.

Malia Johnston and Sarah Sproull strongly perform a duet punctuated with high kicks and strong body percussive slap – don’t mess with these femme fatales. Each performer, one after the other, embeds themselves into the body
outline and rolls away replacing themselves – one body outline, two, three, four…. mystery bodies!

However this mystery is never solved, locked into the breath of the performers, whistling as they disappear. The end.

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