I Moving Lab, under direction of Jack Gray and Dåkot-ta Alcantara-Camacho, presents Indigenous Dance Forum 2, a three-hour event spanning the presentation modes of performance, installation, forum discussion, and dance to sit somewhere in the realm of a gathering of collective consciousness.

We are welcomed to the space, through the s m o k e of sacred fire.

Fire: an activating ritual.

Fire: unifies the collective.

Fire: sacred.

Fire: us.

Inviting us through the fire is a ceremony and ignites our intentions of being in this place. We are welcomed as is, who is, where is. I bring my whakapapa lines, my genealogy of time, ancestors and the traces of the earth each of them carried. They sit within my bodily form, in my bones and in the movement of my blood. And they sit in the movement of my consciousness. (There are the family lines in the art that I make, in the dance that emerges.) They are there too in the way that I attend the event, the eyes through which I absorb the installation and the ears through which the artists’ voices are heard. Everyone present at IDF2 carries a lineage and from the opening of the space we are all acknowledged, welcomed, offered a place to stand and to speak to each other.

The art gallery space is a concrete foyer softened with plants, leafy bundles, the smell of cooking food, and the welcoming hugs from Gray and other participants. We are given goody bags and invited to have a cup of tea or to eat. I am thirsty and I drink a kawakawa kombucha. Refreshments are a plenty and we are refreshed. This is the hospitality of human nature, not of the expectations of funding bodies. Care. Compassion. Consideration. There is food and we are feed, there is warmth and we are warmed, there is conversation and we are chatting. This inversion of the norm contemporary performance space and protocol is indicative of a desire to be more than mere art but for IDF2 to be the complete experience of how the art is offered and received. There is an emphasis on the wider context of the performers and the audience; our whole being is nourished. I Moving Lab activate their ‘performance’ space in the same way they operate in their process space; their attention is on the person, their well-being and their whole-being. In a hauora approach to meeting another, the whole self is acknowledged as legitimate and special, worthy and unique. There is no product here; we are all the process, practicing our art, our modes of living in this space, with each other.

As Dåkot-ta Alcantara-Camacho raps about his land and his whakapapa, he invites us to join in, chanting “We are blessed” and “Live ‘cause I love my life today.” His words are a manifestation of energy, an awakening of lost thoughts. There are memories far below the surface that, once spoken, emerge full of lucid intention with a power for change. Alcantara-Camacho vocalizes his mind’s murmuration, the weight of ancient episodes and he celebrates them! There is joy in the re-living and in joining in the lyrics we acknowledge our own stories and bring them to this forum.

Land. Landed. Landing

I land. Island. Ireland

I and. I am. Land.

Throughout the afternoon there are many stories shared, either through performance or via conversation while wandering the galleries in a way that blurs the lines between ‘performer’ and ‘audience’, inviting us all to participate in the discussion of indigenous dance and art making. We all have a place here, we are all indigenous to a land somewhere and it’s this connection, through our ancestors to our land, that connects us to each other; traversing boundaries of culture or language or customary expectations so we can meet at a place of celebration and encouragement. There is a sense that IDF is paving a way forward for us as artists and communicators, opening up a space to return to while moving forward, to ground ourselves while exploring peripheries; a place to be our own self within the collective, inclusive of the woven complexities we carry 

The dancers drift through the galleries, discovering places to dance, wearing Ruth Woodbury’s kakahu. Seeing them up close we admire the artistry in Woodbury’s weaving and also in the character creation the kakahu offer. There are covered mouths that are smiling, there are hidden faces with a secret, and there is swaying flax. This experience is almost a modern fashion catwalk but there are heavier layers here, bold women carrying the netted stories of past generations. There is not time to fully pause and listen to the echoes of the old narrative.

The flax speaks / the garment speaks / the woman speaks

Here. But from a past. Lines / lines / lines

Shedding then remain. Speak

Speak through the veil

Kasina Campbell enters the spaces shedding her heavy skirted skin, then her second skin, and arrives at a plinth, for Julia Mage’au Gray to slowly mark her third skin with patterns of a private story. We choose how closely we watch. The observation process is a bystanding ritual, are we intruding? Or is the commodified vivid the access point for modern markings?

Xiuh Janiki invites us to the edge of a plastic pond, on which she performs a movement, a sacred calling, a warding. Janiki dances from the corners of the earth, from Ranginui and Papatuanuku -and for them. She calls, she draws in. There is lavender, flour and water and the dough is kneaded in the sweat of the body to make a body of the sweaty need. Janiki breathes a cyclic loop of energy, returning her dance to the ground through the self. We are with her, but we are watching her. We could be not there and I feel that her dance would be the same; this seems to be a dance transplanted into the space, not made for the space. The protective plastic is shielding the immediate connection to the concrete floor -are we keeping the gallery floor safe, or could we choose to dissociate the gallery gaze from the sacred form?

Plastic. Protective. Place/d
Who hides from whom

Which shades what

The next installations are a greeting, a prayer, a song, a videoed reflection, a short dance film. Each artist presents their own method of working and while each expression is widely different, the content is the same. Their hearts sit in the hands of their ancestors and this experience of their nurturer/ing is the story that is told.

There are two forum discussions and the aim is each time four indigenous artists discuss their practice, work or performance in an unguarded, non-performed way. The discussion is with each other and we are merely listening. Time constraints, however, shift the forum from the potentiality of discussion and debate to a brief summary of each artist’s thoughts in the present. We listen as these ideas float, wash or rest in a way that really is a beginning of a conversation about indigenous dance or art making. We need time for more, for longer discussion. There are no answers, no geniuses; everyone carries humility in the way they honour of the greater within their work. The commonality of what drives their processes is each lineage back through their own ancestors to the shared ancestor, the land. We all trace back there, through different paths -some known, some waiting for us to find them. There are whispers about the contrast of indigenous methods in colonised places and the constant attempt to restore the whakapapa that has carried us through. The reality of art making in New Zealand is commented on as a non-productive way of caring for the community as a whole being. There are pressures, there are boxes to tick, there are expectations to meet. There are unspoken rules and loudly shouted rules and our individual and collective to challenge is to decide how do I/We respond? Rather than shifting indigenous practices to mould into prescribed conditions, what approaches can we take to carry truth in the creation and the sharing of our artmaking. We remember that the dancer is a political body that can move through Pakeha spaces.

Restore. Re: store.

Store.

Storey.

Story.

My story. Mystery. My. My ancestry, story. Stereo. Steer. They steer they stare they steer clear. The clear story of re-store-y.

The forum does not have time to offer solutions but it is an important discussion to kindle especially within the concrete walls of a Western art gallery in the presence of so many different methods of ancestral connection. All of the senses are activated and the markings that remain etch a communal desire for a new space to emerge. IDF2 is the beacon for further gatherings in which this can be fulfilled. Established artists speak of youth and the importance of sustaining their emerging paths rather than fueling the ego of the self; the responsibility for new growth is wide, it is shared. There is also the responsibility of caring for the earth and maintaining the health of the land and our associated health.

Coven perform and their electrified holding of the space is heightened ownership. The control over their physical movement form has strength, sass and a profound understanding of who they are and where they stand. Each dancer has their moment out front but they operate completely as a collective, unifying their individual identities for something more. Something that is fierce, uplifting and grounded.

After another snack break we move to a side gallery for the choreographed dance work, the first formal part of the event which operates in the standard mode of contemporary dance presentation. As we enter we are presented a plant offering, a touch point to our earth. The dancers are students of Unitec and have been part of the IDF2 Mentoring Project with Jack Gray, Dåkot-ta Alcantara-Camacho and Julia Mage’au Gray. The dancers enter, carrying thick blankets usually used for protecting artwork; in a gallery set with art pieces on the walls it’s interesting to observe the hidden working layer given significance and there are parallels we can draw to the IDF2 event and the unpacking of indigenous art making processes. From stillness on the floor, the dancers begin shaking, emerging, distorting and orientating in the space. This dance is the story of the journey they’ve had together creating the dance and reflections from the performers blog posts emerge in their movement and through the soundscape with questions of identity, belonging, discovery and uncovery. The vocabulary is an experience so each movement is fresh individualised. The dancers have strong technique but also an open access to the experience of the movement and the emotional undercurrent which emerges.

Blanket is shelter from and shelter inside thoughts

Integrity. Individuality

Fold self inside. Pretzel girl in bowl of blankets

Bound / get off skin

But coming together calling

Calling fire / smoke / smell

The dancers journey on their own, with each other, against each other and in support of each other. The journeys are personal and seeing young dancers weeping, comforting, fighting, resolving, speaks to the intensity of the process and the depth of I Moving Lab’s creative process.

The dance ends, Gray thanks the dancers and artist participants then we are blessed out of the space with a sage cleansing.

IDF2 is beyond any expected form of artistic presentation; there are no rules, no separated audience and performer space, the flow of the event is very slick but with the freedom of allowing us to chat and reflect on ideas that emerge. We can sit, we can stand, we can walk. In this way the artists that present are opening up a new space for us, where their voices can be heard outside of any industry or organization boundaries. The space has been created on their terms, not from any funding body needing a specific outcome from this gathering. In this way, we connect more immediately with the ideas, with the artists and then with our own place amongst these intentions. I feel I can be myself in this space, I bring my practice and sit it alongside these artists and their work. This is community building through artist centred practices rather than an outcome based (money) product. There is enjoyment and appreciation of the art but the ideas or practices or tikanga that the art serves are more significant than the mode of sharing. The notion of indigeneity arises and each performing artist offers their own understanding, their own identity as an indigenous artist. At the core of these identities is the connection to the land. In this way, it is discussed that we are all indigenous artists. But in the inclusive notion proposed here is that greater than a mere physical connection to the land, it is how we are connected to the land that is the essence of indigeneity. Through the ancestral lines, the whakapapa of our family stories, and the way we carry these narratives emerges the responsibility we each have regarding the care for the land. In this correlative patterning we are inherently caring for ourselves, and for the future self, the future community of selves. This is IDF2’s central kaupapa and the provocation is there for us to engage in our practices more deeply, to make art that emerges from our intrinsic processes, to continue the conversation around indigeneity and indigenous art practices, and to do so in our own ways, outside of the parameters set by administrative governing bodies.

 

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