This review is not a music review – it’s a dance review.

Green Fire Islands is an odd mix. Very fine visiting balladeers and musicians from Ireland with a very fine established poet, and songsters and musicians from Aotearoa. However for some reason dancers have been added to the mix, turning potentially interesting fusion more towards confusion.

Differences between musicians on display and dancers on display were transparently clear in this show. These differences were enhanced by an oddly collated jumble of production items. Firstly a massive streak of cloth though nicely lit, was somewhat reminiscent of an upside down Irish rainbow and secondly, the dancers, for some equally obscure reason, were sent upstage (almost backstage) to do their "thing" on a raised strip that resembled a piece of tennis court or, as someone else observed, a side lying cat walk. Hmmm…

A discrete lighting show didn’t help – for much of the programme the dancers (and I am including the lovely tirau, taiaha and poi dance work here from Mitsy Strickland, Moko Ratana, Horomona Horo and Tema Fenton-Coyne), was under lit or out of light. Interesting contemporised movement sequences and interpretive responses were almost always lost.

Dance is not invisible. Neither are dancers although there names were unseen in programme or most of the publicity. Jack Gray is a very watchable dancer with a most delicious grace and he could easily have been let loose anywhere on that stage. The other two female contemporary dancers, Tema Fenton-Coyne and Tru Paraha, though less experienced, held a combined focus, nicely captured in an early Whirimako Black song. Her voice held the beauty of undulating body forms.

Contemporary dance, as much as any art form, speaks across borders, in this case cultural, traditional, formal and even possibly political. An Irish dancing school girl, Doherty Farrant, resplendent in sparkly black costume and pointy shoes danced precise and fiery work, but it was in the dark and up the back and so occasional it didn’t belong – to an essentially Irish show!

What you see on stage is entirely up to you as the watcher and this is where my imagination took over my reaction to witnessing a display of dance craft, in this case so much less understood.

As well as the mixture of movement and dance performers, there were some very nice sideshow moments of cameramen and the quick responsive capturing actions of photographer Marti Friedlander. These people were all players in the performance and could have been given their space.

Another element that could have been used to link the show was the distinctive percussive soundscapes of Richard Nunns. This music is very familiar to interpretive, compositional, improvisational dance forms.  The Irish dancing girl could have been melded with some of the other danced moments and both the more traditional dancer bodies, and the contemporary dancers could have sat with the musicians, as equal players in a potentially massively interesting performance project.

Each of the players on that stage were so oddly matched, it was a relief when the two main ones, Whirimako Black and Iarla O’Lionaird, took hold of the stage. As a collaborative venture Green Fire Islands has an awfully long way to go, but it was so interesting to see the early shape. I hope it does keep going.

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