Liminal. New Zealand School of Dance

3rd Year Contemporary Dance students choreographic season
10 May 2024. Te Whaea Theatre, Wellington
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

We are seated in the round which proves the right choice for this attractive program, and effective use is made of the four aisles that serve as overflow performance space, or entrances and exits to and from the central area. There is stylish costuming in shades of white, designed in an impressive collaboration with student colleagues in the Design course at Te Whaea.

Liminal comprises eight works individually choreographed but linked into a continuous sequence that moves forward but also allows echoes back to images in earlier sections. This pleasing continuity is partly due to the same costumes being worn throughout—smart upstanding collars, a layer added here or removed there, masks worn (though a pity perhaps that the golden rule never to actually touch a mask while it’s being worn onstage, since that immediately destroys illusion, is not followed).

In the dances there are themes of friendship and camaraderie, with a good opener, In The Making, by Anna Hosking, followed by Please Let Me Remain with thoughts on sisterhood by Aylin Atalay (with music by Sibel Atalay, presumably a sibling?).

(left) Lila Brackley in *Please Let Me Remain*; (right) Anna Hosking, Audrey Stuck and Lila Brackley in *Accidental Renaissance*. New Zealand School of Dance Choreographic Season, 2024. Photos: © Stephen A’Court

Natural? by Lila Brackley takes on themes of unease and uncertainty, with masks involved. Primo by Sophie Sheaf-Morrison invokes the atmosphere of an airport with people coming and going in chaotic haste.

Anya Down continues with an urgency of atmosphere in Hardly Working. A/Effect by Audrey Stuck leads into Accidental Renaissance by Aleeya McFadyen-Rew, with stronger bouts of competition growing out of play.

In the closing piece by Trinity Maydon, Worn Shoe, determined strides are taken by all the dancers in all directions, wave after wave of walking patterns that build to a committed cadence of the program.

These dancers are clean and clear movers, with open and varied facial expressions so we feel we meet them all in turn as they move through the light. Although there are no specific references to the time and places of life in Aotearoa New Zealand, the performance is impeccably prepared and each piece segues easily into the next. Overall the effect is gained of a group of friends, enjoying each others’ company, playing then competing, aware of possible danger but in the end uniting as a single supportive group. Holly Newsome as choreographic mentor has made a flowing and attractive sequence of the students’ work, with welcome collaboration with Design department.

One wonders if there could be further collaboration with the Classical Dance stream at the same school, since Ballet too needs to encourage new choreography. These emerging dance -makers are earning their school’s motto—Kia kōrero te katoa o te tinana. Make the whole body do the talking.

Jennifer Shennan, 12 May 2024

Featured image: Aleeya McFadyen-Rew and Sophie Sheaf-Morrison in In the Making. New Zealand School of Dance Choreographic Season, 2024. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Swan Lake. Royal New Zealand Ballet

1 May 2024 (and following national tour). St James Theatre, Wellington
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

This pedigree production of Swan Lake by Russell Kerr, the beloved father figure of ballet in New Zealand, was first staged on the company in 1996 and again in 2002, 2007 and 2013. Russell Kerr died in 2022 so this re-staging is the first not under his direction.

It proves a triumph on several levels, and is giving many a balletomane a sense of coming home. To some degree that involves the sumptuous sets and distinctive costumes by designer Kristian Fredrikson, which still carry as well as they did nigh on three decades ago. The cut and the cloth, the colours, weight and scale of all of Fredrikson’s work come from a singular vision.

Mayu Tanigaito as Odette/Odile can trust her formidable technique to release an exquisite interpretation of the dual role. She conveys Odette’s yearning through superb control of port de bras, unfolding arabesques and in the beautifully held balances, which could have lasted even longer, holding her breath and ours. But after a hint of rubato with the masterful conductor Hamish McKeich holding the baton, you have to go where the stunningly beautiful violin solo, played by Donald Armstrong, is leading you. The pathos of doomed love and Odette’s courage to protect both the Prince, and her fellow victims, is rendered with a tenderness that was in splendid contrast with her sparkling duplicity as Odile. Pearl then diamond.

Mayu Tanigaito as Odette and Laurynas Vejalis as Siegfried in *Swan Lake*, Act II. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2024. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Laurynas Vejalis is a pensive Prince Siegfried, and I appreciate enormously the aesthetic restraint that he brings to his phenomenal technique. As a dancer he can do anything, as Siegfried he holds back, until he sights Odile that is. As the four-act ballet progresses this couple perform some of the finest pas de deux we have seen here in recent years.

The ensemble of swans is impressive, many of them younger dancers who will be performing in their first Swan Lake. They may have missed Russell Kerr but they could not have a better introduction than this beautifully realised production. Character dances in the ballroom scene are very stylishly delivered and help build a rich and royal courtly atmosphere, all the more devastating when it falls out of the vertical and collapses into chaos. Von Rothbart wears the most magnificent cloak in history but I felt the mysterious and evil intent of his complex role could have been more convincingly conveyed.

Catarina Estévez-Collins and Monet Galea-Hewitt, with corps de ballet, as Swans in *Swan Lake* Act II. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2024. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Kerr’s production lifts Tchaikovsky’s sublime composition off the page and onto the stage, and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra play superbly, with a number of fine players evident in the solos. The different sections of the orchestra are alive to the drama of lyrical and haunting or tempestuous and extrovert passages. Hamish McKeich holds it all together and the triumph belongs equally to him.

Much credit is due to the Company’s new artistic directorate for appointing Turid Revfeim as regisseur of Russell Kerr’s production. Revfeim is another of the country’s ballet legends—an accomplished dancer, teacher and artistic director of an independent ballet collective, a long-standing professional of great stamina and skilled diplomacy. Having worked with Kerr for years she is the perfect person for the job. The modesty apparent in her curtain-call speaks volumes, but as Edmund Hilary would say she ‘has an awful lot to be modest about’. Her program essay reminisces about Kerr’s inimitable way of working, and the high expectations he had of each dancer.

It is good too to be reminded of Shannon Dawson’s words about Kerr … ‘He is a parent of sorts, a father of dance, teaching the young, guiding the teenager and letting the adult go free, and the only thing expected in return is that you do your best.’

Kerr’s own insightful essay in the printed program proclaims ‘There are no swans in the ballet Swan Lake…’ explaining they are all women…’victims of an evil genius’. His reading offers an ambiguous ending to the ballet, suggesting that von Rothbart as the power of evil has been overcome, but perhaps only temporarily? Swan and Prince are together, but the misogynist magician will be back. He was conquered once, for now, but there may come a need to conquer him again. The resourceful lighting design by Jon Buswell contributes much here.

Branden Reiners as von Rothbart in *Swan Lake.* Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2024. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Jennifer Shennan, 3 May 2024

Featured image: Mayu Tanigaito as Odile and Laurynas Vejalis as Siegfried in Swan Lake, Act III. Royal New Zealand Ballet, 2024. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Dona Nobis Pacem. The film

John Neumeier choreographer. Hamburg Ballet
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

John Neumeier has been the artistic director and choreographer of Hamburg Ballet since 1973. His prolific output of numerous full-length ballets over those decades is legendary, and what’s more, all the works have stayed current in the company’s repertoire and are given regular return seasons. That is a phenomenal achievement in world ballet terms.

I was more than fortunate, when on a Goethe Institut study tour to Germany in 2005, to see many of Neumeier’s full-length ballets staged in a breathtaking single week in Hamburg—Romeo & Juliet, Lady of the Camelias, Death in Venice, Midsummer Nights Dream, Odysseus, Mahler Third Symphony. I have simply never recovered from that week and indeed have no intention of ever recovering.

Hamburg Ballet later performed in Brisbane where I saw Nijinsky Gala. Neumeier has long and often cited Vaslav Nijinsky as the formative inspiration for his own life in ballet. On a later visit to Copenhagen I was enormously impressed by the Royal Danish Ballet’s production of The Little Mermaid, which they had commissioned of Neumeier. I visited Hamburg again in 2015, to see his Bach St.Matthew Passion.

I’d have to say deep and lasting gratitude was the word for all these choreographic riches, but you can’t have too much of a good thing so when recently I noticed Dona Nobis Pacem, to JS Bach’s B Minor Mass, was to be Neumeier’s prayer for peace in the world and his swan song choreography as he prepares to retire from Hamburg Ballet, I was tempted to treat myself to a final trip to Europe. Would I, wouldn’t I get there?

Measure my delight then to notice that the local Arts TV channel was about to screen film of Dona Nobis Pacem right here in my front room! So I didn’t have to fly to Europe after all but just to cancel all commitments for a day and a night and sit glued to the screen for two airings of the work that proves among the of most poignant, exquisite, sad and uplifting of ballets ever made.

Do check Youtube for a 5 minute excerpt of the work. There you will see the superb ensemble dancing of the blessed spirits, as well as of the shell-shocked soldier-victims of war. The lead performer, Spanish born dancer Aleix Martinez, brilliantly portrays the central role of—shall we call him the Unknown Soldier, or Everyman. He would and should outdance warmongers everywhere—but that’s not the way the world works of course.

One of several excerpts from Dona Nobis Pacem available on YouTube

A few days later the same Arts Channel broadcast the documentary—The Life and Work of John Neumeier. All manner of insights are offered, as to how the boy from Milwaukee ended up as arguably Europe’s finest ballet choreographer who rates the music he selects as highly as the dances he sets to them. You don’t work with French pianist David Fray unless you mean business. Clearly these films exist somewhere in the world. Please hunt them down and watch them, then tell your grandchildren what you saw.

If we had to pick our three favourite choreographers in the whole world, and thank goodness we don’t, my votes would go to John Neumeier, and to New Zealand’s Gray Veredon (more on him later), and the remarkable Douglas Wright. Both Neumeier and Wright shared the magnetic inspiration of Nijinsky, of dancer and of choreographer in their own calling, and I was more than once made mindful of Wright by this choreography of Neumeier and by the performance of Martinez, which is about the finest compliment I can offer to them all.

Jennifer Shennan, 29 April 2024

Featured image: DVD cover, Dona Nobis Pacem

Woman Life Freedom. Crows Feet Dance Collective

24 March 2024. Hannah Playhouse, Wellington
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

This dance work is choreographed by Jan Bolwell and performed by 35 members of Crows Feet Dance Collective, an ensemble of mature dancers, marking 25 years since the formation of the group in 1999.

‘Anyone can join Crows Feet—you just have to be a woman over 35. There are no auditions’ reads the program note. It’s a courageous undertaking to put trained former dancers together with others who have never performed professionally—never mind mid-30s, some are in their 70s and 80s. In today’s dance culture, which typically favours technical virtuosity and the prowess of youth, it is refreshing to see this dignified and measured yet impassioned meditation on the roles and rights of women in several parts of the world, focussing principally on Iranian and Kurdish societies.

Anna Groves in two moments from Woman Life Freedom, 2024. Photos: © Rob Edwards

The hour-long dance work is a vigil, a witnessing, a lament, a letter to the world. It plays against Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, and incorporates text from a number of sources, including the utterly wonderful poem by Maya Angelou—A Brave and Startling Truth. There’s not meant to be a star in a show of this nature but, since her words address all of humankind, Angelou (who was herself a dancer of some note) is that star—or do I mean that Annie Ruth delivers her text with an empathy and luminous vocal quality that binds the performance together. The poem Home, by Warsan Shire, is equally memorably spoken.

Gorecki had Poland’s tragedies in mind—Angelou knew too well the violent savagery meted out to Black Americans—Shire is British-Somali—so the show’s telling of Iranian women’s struggles and resilience finds echo in many other times and places in the world. Processions resemble mediaeval basses danses, tableaux and groupings use lengths of cloth to double as hijab or the shrouded bodies of dead babies, a serpentine farandole of grief acts as a poroporoaki to farewell family and friends.

It’s sad and sobering, but finds a way to end with resilience and hope—which are words you can equally apply to Jan Bolwell herself, both in her life and her work. It’s a yes from me.

Jennifer Shennan, 29 March 2024

Featured image: Anna Groves in a moment from Woman Life Freedom, 2024. Photo: © Bob Zuur

Paradise Rumour. Black Grace

22 March 2024. St James Theatre, Wellington
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

Paradise Rumour, commissioned by Sharjah Festival in UAE (now that’s different), has toured in USA, and also performed in Auckland and Christchurch. This single performance in Wellington marks the end of its current season though further performances in Australia and the Pacific—Noumea? Suva? Honolulu? would make a lot of sense.

The Black Grace team is on top of their game—producing a printed program which contains Ieremia’s fine poem by way of libretto for the work, all the production info you need, and also folds out as a striking poster (see featured image above). It costs $3 and I shouldn’t think there’d be many copies headed for recycling any time soon.

This is dark and courageous choreography from Neil Ieremia in which he calls out the controlling power that missionaries historically claimed in 19th century Pacific, and Samoa in particular. Its message is one of resilience.

The work is strikingly staged with copious tropical vegetation on both sides of the stage, and lighting that follows sunrise through to dark night. This very effectively creates a Pacific Island locality, though be sure this is not anything to do with the Paradise of contemporary tourist attraction. Instead the work runs deep the into the complexity of interactions that missionaries historically required of their original converts, willing or otherwise, and the subsequent generations of migrants.

Paradise Rumour is layered, complex, enigmatic and elliptical, poignant and provocative. There are intriguing sculptural images of costumes or props that change before our eyes in a range of lighting variations. Quite often lately we have seen big shows where, although billed as dance, there’s a much reduced role for dancers to play as high tech audio-visuals move in to play the lead roles. Here there’s miles and miles of intrepid dancing, in fresh and unpredictable rhythms within a stunning score.

There are contrasting movement qualities among the six performers. Fuaao Tutulu Faith-Schuster, Demi-Jo Manaio, Rodney Tyrell—a lyrical woman, a female pocket rocket, a strong graceful male—are dancers who establish the emotional experiences. Three actor-musicians—Vincent Farane, Sione Fataua and Leki Jackson-Bourke—carry the story of the conflicted missionary forward. The rich soundscape by Faiumu Matthew Salapu underpins the whole show.

Fuaao Tutulu Faith-Schuster and Rodney Tyrell in Neil Ieremia’s *Paradise Rumour*. Black Grace, 2024. Photo: © Duncan Cole

The dancers are running—and my, how they are running! Is that to get to somewhere or away from somewhere? The answer is yes, because they are running on the spot. Alchemy turns this dance show into powerful theatre which is more than the sum of its parts. Such qualities rank Black Grace with Bangarra Dance Theatre’s explorations of Australian indigenous experience, and that’s high praise from me.

The capacity audience left buzzing and smiling—not that the show was cheerful exactly, but because it’s about something, it’s a stunning achievement from every angle, and because its stamina is infectious. Folks on the bus home were still talking animatedly about it. That doesn’t happen often.

Jennifer Shennan, 24 March 2024

Featured image: Poster image for Paradise Rumour. Photo: Duncan Cole/Toaki Okano

Belle—A Performance of Air. Movement of the Human

14 March 2024. St James Theatre, Wellington
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

Belle—A Performance of Air is a theatrical event of monumental proportions.

The stage is mostly a launching pad for take-off from gravity, with high-flying spinning aerialists and moving sculptures that evoke time past and time future in a range of astonishing ways.

There’s a striking opening image—backlit figures wired into a ground control centre, they’re there then they’re not—what’s real and what’s virtual? what’s human and what’s AI? who are you and who are you sitting next to?

Five ‘movement and dance specialists’ Brydie Colquhoun, Anu Khapung, Jemima Smith, Aleeya McFadyen-Rew and Nadiyah Akbar, perform dance sequences (still on the ground) of electric staccato movement, as though thoughts are being cancelled before they can be completed, lending urgency and frustration. The ‘aerialist specialists’ are Imogen Stone, Katelyn Reed, Rosita Hendry and Ellyce Bisson. A human standing inside a circle always evokes Leonardo da Vinci’s Vetruvian Man, one of my favourite images of all time. Here that’s a Woman, and her airborne spinning dance within the hoop is something to behold. An impressive singing violinist, Anita Clark, is live and also reflected onto high angled screens that shape-shift before our eyes.

Stunning lighting design offers many a trompe l’oeil that spills the work up into the flies, into the auditorium and the royal boxes, then searches out the audience with waves of blinding light. The stage becomes a sea of mist in which the performers hide, and finally disappear in a devastatingly uncompromising finale.

The work lasts less than a hour, and is described as ‘a meditation on what lies beyond’. It’s the work of Malia Johnston as director/producer, Rowan Pierce as stage and lighting director, Jenny Ritchie as aerial choreographer and costume designer, and composition by Eden Mulholland. You could have called it millennial twenty-five years ago, let’s call it apocalyptic now. Over and again I found echoes from Major Tom—Take your protein pills and put your helmet on … Commencing countdown, engines on … Check ignition and may God’s love be with you … Now it’s time to leave the capsule if you dare … I’m stepping through the door And I’m floating in a most peculiar way … And the stars look very different today … Though I’m past one hundred thousand miles … I’m feeling very still … And I think my spaceship knows which way to go… Tell my wife I love her very much she knows Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong. Far above the Moon Planet Earth is blue And there’s nothing I can do.

I then thought of Yuri Gagarin, who after he returned to the ship, albeit late, from the first ever space walk , said ‘I felt as though I had been dancing’.

You can probably tell that the various sensory stimuli of the show, the stunning ‘smoke and mirrors’ that worked without a hitch, invite a high kinaesthetic response in us. We have been warned several times of the haze, strobe, and bright light spill, and such goods were delivered in no small measure. The trouble with that is—as with the road sign ‘Beware of falling rocks’—there’s not a lot you can do about it once you’re on the road. You can always stay home of course—but I wouldn’t have missed the show for the world.

I just close my eyes during strobes, and hold up the programme sheet to block out painfully bright lights (as do a number of the audience around me, even though none of us wants to miss the rest of the imagery). Those breaks in turn mean we are made aware of ourselves watching the show, rather than being totally transported by it, even though we are that too.

You get the feeling there will be more shows from this talented team. I challenge them to find a way of lighting the show to ilIuminate their ideas without trapping us in the headlights. They’ve proved they can do almost anything, so of course they can do this too.

Jennifer Shennan, 15 March 2024

Images: © Andi Crown Photography

Jungle Book Reimagined. Akram Khan Company

23 February 2024. St James Theatre, Wellington
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

A fascinating in-depth interview late last year on Radio New Zealand between Akram Khan and Kim Hill—(which of her interviews has not been deep and fascinating?)—is well worth accessing in RNZ archive. It’s no surprise to learn there that the bright mind and ferocious drive from Khan’s youngest days has followed through to his celebrated career as choreographer today.

We have seen other work by Khan here some Festivals back, in a program shared with French dancer Sylvie Guillem, and more recently and most memorably, in English National Ballet’s production of his Giselle in an Auckland season. That classic too was ‘re-imagined’ in a timeless setting, and a huge set was used to great effect for the dramatic dancing that nonetheless remained central to the work.

Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is a favourite among memories of childhood reading. There’s always a frisson to have old names and images recalled—Mowgli the child, Shere Khan the lurking tiger, Baloo the Bear, the Wolves of course. Its underlying theme of man in practical and ethical relation to other animal species and to nature is carried through, but is here darkly thrust into a contemporary setting of looming environmental disasters.

The show opens with giant animated images of desperate refugees on boats struggling to reach the shores of new lands, but there’s disaster on all sides and many do not make it. Sound familiar? Mowgli the girl child is a casualty, separated from her family, and she ends up in a wild place, a jungle where the wolves will discuss who’s to care for her. Sound familiar? How prescient was Kipling, how sharp is Khan.

Throughout the show many other large-scale images are projected onto several gauze curtains layered across the stage … herds of giraffes stampeding, huge elephants pondering with dread on the state of the natural environment. An atmospheric sound track is loud and throbbing, but to my disappointment prevents us from hearing the numerous excerpts of dialogue that are no doubt bringing further dimension to the work. As there is no printed program available that opportunity to quote from these excerpts is also lost.

Baloo the Bear is an entertaining comic, the girl-cub is central, and a number of mesmerising group dances bring further urgency to the performance. Readers wanting further detail about the cast and choreography may find it online.

I know there are arguments these days against printed programs—’Audiences don’t want to be told what to think’ … ‘Too much historical information we don’t need’ … ‘Save trees and protect the environment’ etc. I personally think that’s a pity—printed programs don’t need to be lavish and glossy (though I agree they sometimes are). They can be simple and modest but still packed with a wealth of information and profiles of performers. Without them we will soon move to a scenario without archives, memoirs, biographies, histories of the performing arts—nothing to store in the attic for decades—nothing to trigger and relish memory, to show and share with friends, and with grandchildren to encourage them to go to the theatre, and to read Kipling… and probably many fewer reviews to share thoughts and opinions, to help document an enduring but ephemeral art.

Jennifer Shennan, 29 February 2024

Featured image: The elephants from Jungle Book Reimagined. Photo: Supplied

Tutus on Tour. Royal New Zealand Ballet

24 February 2024. Te Raukura, Kapiti
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

The two recently appointed directors at RNZB, Tobias Perkins and Ty King-Wall, express in the program’s introduction their hope that the national Tutus on Tour production will leave the audience captivated, moved and wanting more. It did and we do.

The program opens with a set of excerpts from Swan Lake, staged after Russell Kerr’s treasured production from 1996. Usually we see either the complete four act ballet (which RNZB will perform in May this year), or just Act II as a stand-alone piece. Here however is a totally new experience—the full four acts reduced to a 40 minute abridged version, so it’s the classic story but without the trimmings, and on a tiny budget. Far from reducing the impact of the mighty original, this in an unexpected way brings out a poignancy and intimacy in the interactions between the characters, in what is effectively a chamber version of the choreography. And with soloists of this calibre, we lose nothing of the quality.

Turid Revfeim has staged the piece with care—but she swiftly credits David McAllister (who has been Interim Artistic Director at RNZB this past year) with the actual choice and sequence of excerpts. There’s no von Rothbart on stage for example but his evil presence is caught in the orchestral overture (in very good amplification in this excellent venue). The performance is danced to a 2013 recording of Nigel Gaynor conducting the NZSO, back in that memorable era when RNZB retained their own conductor on the staff, and he’d be the best ballet conductor, music advisor and arranger that you could want. We’re off to a very good start indeed, bathing in sumptuous Tchaikovsky.

The cygnets are the pert little favourites and do very well. Laurynas Vejalis, a brooding Siegfried, dances powerful allegro legwork with adagio arms (that’s a whole lot harder to do than it sounds, and the results affect our pulse and breathing). Then he and Mayu Tanigaito as Odette develop an exquisite rapport in the pas de deux from Act II. This was a revelation and may have to do with the smaller proportions of the venue? In a full-sized theatre all the dancers have to project a larger-than-life scale to reach the back of the Gods. Here there’s little distance from stage to audience and that means the pair can dance solely to, with and for each other. Neither of them looks at the audience, we are merely voyeurs of their love-making. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

There’s a charming pas de trois danced by Calum Gray, Catarina Estévez Collins and Cadence Barrack. Calum has a new strength and presence which is a pleasure to see. Then follows a smashing Neopolitan number by Ema Takahashi and Dane Head that sizzles the stage. Wow.

There’s a new Siegfried now, the sharp and spirited Kihiro Kusukami, to dance with Odile, Katherine Minor—and here’s another triumph, again I think in part due to the intimate scale of the venue. Siegfried looks only at his ‘love’ (but it’s ‘the wrong woman’, you fool), while she, the beautiful brazen two-faced prostitute, looks at him just often enough to keep him mesmerised, but also at times at us, not with a smile exactly, more of a sneer and a wink, as if to say ‘Aren’t I clever to seduce a prince like this and do my father’s bidding at the same time?’ It’s a very skilled performance indeed, and cadences a miniature ballet we will long remember.

After the interval comes Alice Topp’s Clay, a pas de deux from her Logos, to music by Einaudi, seen here in 2023. Performed by Mayu Tanigaito and Levi Teachout, this is in extreme contrast of movement style and vocabulary from the previous work and Mayu reveals the great range of her performing ability. With tightly focussed tension, the drama of their pas de deux recalls the choreography of the full work.

Shaun James Kelly has re-worked Prismatic (from the larger cast first seen in last year’s Platinum season). The bright and energised piece pays homage to the neo-classical gem, Prismatic Variations, co-choregraphed by Russell Kerr and Poul Gnatt in 1959. The ascetic aura of that talisman work cannot be easily imitated, but I do wonder if the dancers’ facial expressions and smiles could be reined in and at least in parts replaced by the meditative neutrality that gave the original work such a celestial aura and mana. There are striking sequences and shapes throughout the choreography, with a final triumphant sculpture of the group of twelve dancers that suggests the crow’s nest or bowsprit of a ship sailing on the high seas.

I very much value the printed program for its thoughtful and detailed content. The Company is entering a new era, and one can only wish them all safe travels and happy dancing in this tour around the country. Half the Company does the North and half the South Island, which gives valuable access for younger dancers to try new roles. Audiences in twelve centres will be thrilled to have them back. Some in those audiences will remember the tours of 156 towns that Poul Gnatt took New Zealand Ballet to in 1950s. He persuaded them to enrol as Friends of the Ballet and their 5-shillings subs paid for the petrol to drive to the next town. The rest is history.

Jennifer Shennan, 26 February 2024

Featured image: Front cover image for the program for Tutus on Tour showing Mayu Tanigaito as Odile in Swan Lake. Photo: © Ross Brown

Hatupatu Kurungaituku—A Forbidden Love. Taki Rua Productions

Artistic Direction: Tānemahuta Gray
Kapa Haka choreography: Wētini Mītai-Ngãtai
at Tawhiri in Wellington. 20 – 24 February 2024 and following tour to Auckland, Christchurch & Rotorua
reviewed by Jennifer Shennan

It’s always a special moment for an audience when the poster image for a production is revealed in the course of play—only fleetingly, there it was, but we recognise it instantly since we have been looking forward to this show for some time and wondering how the combination of its many threads might weave together. And what an image it is, also on the program cover—a Maori man, Hatupatu, wearing a fine piupiu (woven fibre skirt), stands looking at us, his left fist strongly clenched, his right arm lifted to embrace the Maori bird-woman, Kurungaituku, who is suspended upside-down beside him, their cheeks adjacent, faces wreathed in red feathers and foliage, her bird body marked with feather shapes. It speaks of love and tragedy, of what is possible and what’s not, a man and a woman together but who can never be united, and one of them will die. The cryptic mystery of the legend of Hatupatu and the Bird-Woman is told in dialogue, all of it in te reo (Maori language), four males, gun performers of haka and taiaha. Female aerial artists are the birds, their urgent calls screeching out as they soar and sway overhead.

It is a courageous and innovative opening performance of the Aotearoa New Zealand Arts Festival, in a new venue that Wellington will see more of.

You’d have to be a visionary to even attempt such a production but if anyone can do it that would be Tānemahuta Gray in tandem with Taki Rua theatre enterprise. Tāne has been thinking for years about creating this show, let’s call it an aerial dance-play, drawn from a legend of Te Arawa Maori. It’s a remarkable project but he would be swift to credit the team of collaborators. Principal among those is Wētini Mītai-Ngatai, (of the leading cultural group in Rotorua, Te Mātārae I Ōrehu), who choreographed the kapa haka and taiaha sequences which Hatupatu and his three brothers deliver with power, precision and grace. There is contrasting humour when they goof around sparring with each other, to the great delight of the capacity audience which is seated or standing either side of the long thrust-stage. The Bird-Woman and her fellow creatures fly and soar above us, but without indulging in virtuosity merely to impress us. We are the more impressed by that.

Another stage at one end is backed by a drop screen with projected stunning images, stylised from the natural world phenomena around Rotorua. (Lucky me, I visited there by coincidence just last week so was thrilled to be reminded here of the wondrous dancing sands at Hamurana, the deafeningly wonderful waterfall at Okere, the fuming Pohutu geyser, the glorious soaring trees and exquisite bird life in the bush at Maungatautari). A trap door opens and recreates Pohutu geyser, and another trapdoor opens to reveal a mammoth cage in which the Bird Woman traps her man. These are all special effects that could go wrong 100 different ways. Nothing went wrong.

Paddy Free’s supportive sound score incorporated taonga puoro (traditional Maori music instruments) played by Alistair Fraser. John Verryt’s set design, Jo Kilgour’s lighting, Elizabeth Whiting’s and Amy Macaskill’s costume design are all faultless.

I specially appreciated the illuminated taniko weaving patterns that replaced a proscenium arch. That personified the title Taki Rua, the long-standing theatre company that presented this work. (Former director of Taki Rua, playwright Hone Kouka says of the name, ‘Taki Rua is a weaving pattern and means to go in twos—signifying the bi-cultural aspect of the theatre.’) This is an assembled tribe of Aotearoa New Zealand’s premier theatre artists all at their stunning best. Eds Eramiha as Hatupatu, a magnetic presence, is a natural performer across several genres without a cliché anywhere. Kasina Campbell as Kurungaituku is the compelling Bird Woman, every one of her gestures finely chiselled. Both are experienced in film, theatre and kapa haka so not a shred of performance nerves near them. Others in the cast include graduates from Toi Whakaari Drama School, Whitireia Performing Arts, Unitec, UCol, University of Auckland, New Zealand School of Dance, which accounts for a refreshing combination of performance styles.

Tāne Gray is himself a graduate of New Zealand School Dance and still maintains a presence for Maori tikanga there. This production carries further echo back to the 2001 season of Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Ihi FreNZy, which combined Mark Baldwin’s choreography to songs of Split Enz, and the kapa haka group of Te Mātārae I Ōrehu, led by Wētini Mītai-Ngātai. This production brings the promises from that early season to fruition here, 23 years later.

The production will now tour to Auckland, Christchurch and Rotorua—where I imagine the roof will lift off the venue, the audience rise in haka to applaud them, then everyone will be flying on high-wires.

Ka mua ka muri. Look back to look forwards.

Jennifer Shennan, 22 February 2024

Featured image: Hatupatu, played by Eds Eramiha, and Kurungaituku the Bird Woman played by Kasina Campbell. Photo: © Stephen A’Court

Tribute to Jon Trimmer

2 February 2024. Opera House, Wellington
by Jennifer Shennan

Sir Jon Trimmer, dancer extraordinaire and leading artist of the Royal New Zealand Ballet for decades, died in October 2023. Yesterday a Tribute to the man and artist was presented in Wellington to a capacity audience at the Opera House. Guest of Honour was Jacqui, Lady Trimmer, also a dancer with RNZB, who was at Jon’s side throughout his 60 year performance career

The event was designed and prepared by Turid Revfeim, former dancer with Company, and more recently artistic director of her independent Ballet Collective Aotearoa.

We were reminded of the extraordinary range of Jonty’s roles in spoken tributes, photo images, film excerpts of him dancing, and live performances by current members of RNZB. Jon had danced in all the classics—(his favourite was Albrecht, and we also saw film of him as the visionary poet in Les Sylphides). In dramatic roles there were so many favourites but let’s mention Friar Lawrence and Duke of Verona in Christopher Hampson’s Romeo and Juliet; the debauched King in André Prokovsky’s Königsmark; Dr Coppélius in Russell Kerr’s Coppélia; the stunning Swan in Bernard Hourseau’s Carmina Burana; a compelling toa/warrior in Gaylene Sciascia’s Moko; the enigmatic Man in Ashley Killar’s No Exit; and the poignant Leopold in Gray Veredon’s Wolfgang Amadeus—in a duet-minuet with the inimitable Eric Languet. In comedy roles Jon relished Stepmother in Cinderella, Pantalone in Veredon’s The Servant of Two Masters, The Matron in Gary Harris’ The Nutcracker, and goofing through the title role in Harris’ Don Quixote.

Jon Trimmer as the wealthy Pantalone and Harry Haythorne as Dr Lombardi in 'A Servant of Two Masters' — Jon Trimmer (left) as the wealthy Pantalone and Harry Haythorne as Dr Lombardi in *A Servant of Two Masters*. Royal New Zealand Ballet. Photo: © Martin Stewart, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. PACOLL-8050-36-04

Jon Trimmer (left) as Carabosse in *The Sleeping Beauty*, 1979. Photographer not identified; and (right) as Dr Coppélius in *Coppélia*, 1996. Photo: © Stephen A’Court. Images courtesy of Royal New Zealand Ballet

All those memories are worth gold, but it’s apparent to anyone who thinks about it that Gray Veredon was/is New Zealand’s exceptional choreographer with a unique imagination, style and sensibility. Jon was 41 when he first danced the outrageously wonderful solo as The Entertainer in Veredon’s Ragtime Dance Company. No one on the planet ever did or could match that performing. At age 80 Veredon is still active on the international choreographic stage, with recent successes in Warsaw and Venice, and now in Mexico. How fine and fitting it would be for RNZB to re-stage some of his stellar works—perhaps Firebird and Tell Me A Tale for starters.

In 2006 Peter Coates directed and produced a wonderful documentary of Jon’s career from which excerpts were screened. How wonderful to see and hear Russell Kerr in such good voice analysing Jon’s talents. The film will be a valuable resource for years to come.

Tributes were received from former artistic directors of RNZB—Harry Haythorne (by proxy from Mark Keyworth), Ashley Killar, Patricia Rianne, Gary Harris, Matz Skoog, Ethan Stiefel and Francesco Ventriglia—and were read by Anne Rowse, former director of New Zealand School of Dance.

Breathing stopped when Helen Moulder started a cameo from her poignant play, Meeting Karpovsky, that she and Jon performed many times. How could she do that with half the cast missing? But suddenly there was Kim Broad who quietly appeared from the shadows in a miraculous summoning of Jon’s presence. That was the true moment of theatre in the whole event.

The next Russell Kerr Lecture in Ballet & Related Arts, the sixth in the annual series, to be held in Wellington on Sunday 25 February 2024, will be all about Jon Trimmer. Turid Revfeim is the main presenter, with a number of other contributors, and we will also screen the complete Coates’ documentary. For those readers able and interested to attend, please email jennifershennan@xtra.co.nz for an invitation.

We are already thinking ahead that 2025’s lecture will be on Gray Veredon. Perhaps the year after that might be Eric Languet?

Jennifer Shennan, 3 February 2024