Daniel Belton is a choreographer, dance-film maker, and co-founder and artistic director of Good Company Arts. Xin Ji is a Chinese-born New Zealand–based dancer known for his work with Footnote Dance, Okareka Dance Company, Muscle Mouth, Movement of the Human, and New Zealand Dance Company.*

His collaboration exhibits three new, black-and-white films; Astrolabe Whakaterenga (Pounamu), Taiao (Poipoi), and Infinite Octagon. The three films were composed for Aotearoa New Zealand’s Chinese New Year Festival, 2021. They draw on Māori, Chinese and Tibetan traditions, and combine ancient and electronic musics.

Each of the three films occupies their own space, evocative, immersive and cinematic. At a time where travel is restricted and public spaces are preciously contained; I was not able to view these works live, full-scale in their gallery context. Yet, I have repeatedly viewed them with a link to each, on various screen sizes.  Each of these experiences in my own “bubble” have been breathtakingly mesmerizing. To view these large-scale works in a public gallery space in Wellington is an opportunity not-to-be missed or dismissed; as in Aotearoa New Zealand we hold gratitude for opportunities such as this, on a daily basis.

The first piece, inspired by early Pacific Island and Asian cosmology and astronomy informs the creation of this project reimagined for the world wide web in 2020. Good Company Arts contextualises images of dancers gliding on geometric canoes (Waka), thereby connecting past and present, with another sustained temporal experience. These dancers are messengers between worlds in this space-oriented ontology. Navigation through belonging and dreaming are themes that recur in this work, which is effectively paced through repetition with navigational cues guiding the viewer experience. 

Astrolabe – Pounamu, intricately plays with sound composition, making full use of sparse, uncluttered widescreen cinematography. The panoramic framing allows for an elongated, affective, experience of this mediative work.

Second, Belton’s Taiao (Poipoi) integrates Māori, Chinese and Tibetan cultures in a new dance film concentrated on a captivating performance by Xiao Ke. The dancer performs a female embodiment of enlightened energy; a dakini, a ‘sky dancer’ or ‘she who traverses the sky.’ Xiao Ke performs a traditional Tibetan dance, accompanied by references to geography, and digital space(s), referring to sketching/drawing and tracing space and place.

Sound composed by electronic composer Zhou Zi Han with drone flute from Belton and spinning gourds from Al Fraser, accompany the sublime performance of Xiao Ke, in a phrase that brings attention to the very gestures that reference traditional and contemporary aesthetics.  This highly resolved piece captures the dancers’ performance so intently. Foregrounding the performance, dancer Xiao Ke directs visual and aural accompaniment of sketches, traces and trails that layer digital elements so subtly partnering the pas de deux, between a replica of her dancing self, sketching, drawing and painting. The moments where her gesturing hands pull the viewer into and out of the cliff-side highlight specificity to the nuanced hand gestures; subtle and gentle amidst the landscape of the cliff and its alluring tone.  

Infin8 Octagon is the third film screened in this cinematic premiere. Infin8 Octagon is made in co-operation with Singapore’s Arts Fission Company. Greek philosopher Heraclitus (535-475 BC) said “All entities move and nothing remains still”. It all begins with the inexpressible point, the Circle, the number 1, the Monad. The Monad is also referred to as Form, because it circumscribes, comprehends and terminates. Form equals geometry. Belton and Good Company Arts refer to The Monad in this film as the 8 sided mirrored pyramid form.  This form does dialogue with the dancers, replicating, and in doing so, bringing to life the seeds that evolve into the Octagon. The Octagon form represented in this piece is as a redrawing of a partial sketch by Leonardo da Vinci, in fully realised design it offers the viewer a flower of life ‘Bagua’ or Mandala. This description provided by Good Company Arts contextualises the complexities unfolding, for the viewer/audience. In a delightfully contrasting piece to the film reviewed above, Infin8 Octagon sound accompaniment sets a slow and sustained repetition for the piece, that creates its own temporal signature. This work has a cinematic capacity, so large in scale, that it evokes its own relationship to time, while again, supporting a gentleness in gestures. The tableau of the mise-en-scene truly supports this sustained temporality, creating a mediative, contemplative lightness.

I encourage if you can, to take the opportunity to view the works in the gallery. Experiencing All three films, encapsulates the highly resolved compositions of such fine artists in collaboration; on a scale that is, sublime, meditative and a celebration of deep cross-cultural ties. 

Thanks and gratitude to the Asian Events Trust, Chinese New Year Festival, Xiao Ke and Zi Han, Christina Guieb, Jill Goh, Angela Liong and Arts Fission Company, Asia New Zealand Foundation, Creative New Zealand and the City Gallery Wellington Te Whare Toi.

The works can be viewed online here.

https://www.chinesenewyear.co.nz/events/chinese-new-year-festival-online/

*Xin Ji’s new film All Good If Not screened after the three Good Company Arts works reviewed above.  

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