Q Theatre’s black and silver Rangatira  auditorium takes on the guise of planetarium for The Blackbird Ensemble’s enterprising, exuberant, cosmically themed extravaganza The Night Sky, with a 28 member big band playing an extraordinary array of mostly contemporary vocal music against a backdrop of similarly extraordinary visuals. Presented recently in Q’s Loft, and earlier in the year at Galatos to sell-out crowds, this season in Rangatira provides a last chance to experience this show. 

You are unlikely to hear a more diverse array of music from any other ensemble in town. Everything here is selected for its connection to the night sky, deep space, the cosmos, arranged and/or re-orchestrated by director/band leader/composer Claire Cowan and played with verve and evident delight. The show opens with an instrumental mash-up of Holst’s Jupiter mixed with scifi anthems, showing off the full bodied sound which the impressive combo of brass, strings and percussion are able to produce. It closes with Nick Cave‘s ‘Push the Sky Away’, a sombre downer, though the final encore is Two Planets from Bat for Lashes, a promise of cosmic good will. Between these bookends are  such logical choices as The Imperial March from Star Wars representing John Williams, Bjork’s Pluto, and tracks from REM, Portishead, David Bowie, Feist, and The Beastie Boys amongst others.

The musicians are a sight to behold, wearing neon-bright wigs and beanies which glow under UV light, with dramatic face paint and glowing eyelashes, and wearing bling-enhanced but mostly otherwise black clothing.  Lead singer Jessie Cassin is vocally always impressive, confident, ranging from smoky to sultry to defiant. She draws the eye in a knobbly silver body suit which reflects the changing moods of the lighting by Rachel Marlow and Brad Gledhill. Alex Taylor plays saxophone and doubles on vocals; reminiscent of David Bowie in Ziggy Stardust mode, wearing a gold lame jacket and gleaming shirt panels.. Trombonist Kevin Keys steps out to present intergalactic planetary rap, which really gets the audience grooving, and slinky lizard-skin clad Claire Cowan sings one of the encores with considerable aplomb.

Behind the band on the back wall is an ever changing array of projected images – planets, stars, the moon, deep space. Much of this is taken from documentary sources – the myriad starscapes of the Milky Way filmed by NASA, auroras dancing on the rim of the earth, and the city lights our world by night from the International Space Station, several of the more spectacular nebulae captured through the Hubble telescope, historic news footage of moon landings and the first space shuttle launch. There is creative material, too –  films of liquids dispersing inside various glass containers, digital effects, and abstract montages. But most rivetingly, a series of extremely beautiful timelapse photography panaromas of New Zealand starscapes by Joseph Michael filmed from a number of different vantage points.

Aerialists Rochelle Mangan, Eve Gordon and Edward Clendon from the Dust Palace perform guest spots from perches above the musicians, exploiting their astonishing combinations of strength and flexibility, ability to balance and pivot on a tiny area, and maintain an air of nonchalance no matter what happens. Mangan twines herself in over around and through a large metal hoop suspended from a bar, hanging variously from a rim by one hand, both ankles, the back of a knee, or by lying across a stretch of rim as if it were a beam. Gordon parallels this series of manoeuvres on a hanging metal chair skeleton, ending in what seems to be an  impossible seated position on the top rim of the chair before dismounting back to ground level.  Clendon emerges from a swathe of black tissu cloth which hangs almost the full height of the staging area, subsequently winding himself into and out of successive segments of cloth to raise and lower himself relative to the floor, at times disappearing into or emerging from a shroud. All three were at times quite difficult to see against the black curtains and silver piping that comprise the Q interiors, and could benefit from spot lighting to intensify their visibility.

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