Tempo Dance Festival’s Prime Cuts invites us into the Loft theatre, offering an assemblage of performances from the contemporary NZ dance community. The mapping of this selection generates a flux of sensation. We engage with the works and spaces between, through our perplexity, contemplation, disappointment, and delight. A multiplicity of disciplines including video art, dramaturgy, choreographic research, and musical composition generates an uncanny potency. These works and performers attest to the collaborative aptitude of our dance neighborhood. At times, a level of familiarity is palpable between the cast, crew, and supporters translating into flippancy, perhaps risking the alienation of new audiences to contemporary dance. As practitioners and peers we continue to desire these liminal encounters through everyday magic and the experience of theatre. Consequently, questions arise around the curatorial design of this programme.

Vast conceptual spaces within dance are offered through individual works. These include environmental concerns, ecologies of water and its embodiment through human flows and intensities. Waterslides choreographed by Christina Houghton, draws on Deleuze’s liquid perceptions in an investigation of performance ecology. Sequins, silver and see-through design elements create a strong visual presence along with Houghton’s effervescent persona. Watery environments are explored through a collage of domestic actions, audiovisual narratives, and slippery embodiments. Aided by the calm strength of Zahra Killeen-Chance and Kate Bartlet, this intersection of dancescience expresses a playful intelligence and eccentricity.

Different waters are described through Espritu Tasi choreographed and performed by Ojeya Cruz Banks. A solo dance of serene contemplation, Banks expands on the work she developed during the 2011 Pacific Dance Choreographic Laboratory. Ebbs, tidal surge and liquid gravity are explored, based on memoirs of swimming in the waters of her home island inGuam. Bank’s choreography and dancing body is fluid with knowledges. Shifting continuums of memory, sound, space and light evoke an oceanic imaginary.

Hybridity and digital affect is activated in the work of designer Mark Pulsford in collaboration with choreographer Geoff Gilson. Ayahuasca references psychoactive infusions discovered by indigenous peoples ofSouth America and the Amazon. Utilised for its spiritual revelations, the psychedelic effects of Ayahuasca include visual and auditory stimulation, the mixing of sensory modalities and psychological introspection. Co-choreographers and performers Jack Gray, Shannon Mutu and Victoria Szerdi create a shamanistic trio where a dance ritual is summoned and purged. Here we witness dissonant enactments of tribal imagery pushed to a threshold. Questions of appropriation encourage a reflection on what Coco Fusco has critiqued as “cultural transvestitism”, while Pulsford’s intersection of motion graphics within live performance conjures interesting possibilities for interdisciplinary art.

Feminine agency and authenticity produce a force field in the ensemble works of choreographers Kelly Nash (Meme) and Janine Parkes (Still). These choreographies present an array of provocations around transformative psychological states and the multiple worlds inhabited by women. Georgie Goater, Annabel Harrison, Julie Van Renen, Lydia Bittner-Baird, Tallulah Holly Massey, Jessie McCall and Zahra Killeen-Chance offer committed performances, compelling aesthetics and rigorous attention to their craft. Nash’s choreographic experimentations and design denote the emergence of a persuasive dramaturgical voice, while Parkes’s dance investigation traverses interior terrains that speak to our visceral human dilemma.

Prime Cuts and the Tempo Team have successfully re-created another plateau for current dance practice within our flourishing city. Let us continue to maintain new conversations and forums of dialogue that challenge and cultivate future works. Experiencing the performances of these practitioners has allowed me to re-imagine and contemplate the intangible force that is dance. Ko nga mihi nui ki a koutou. 

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