The 2013 Kowhiti season of Atarau presents the work of Maori artists as well as First Nations guests from America, Torres Strait Islands, and Pakeha [European, Scots, English, Irish, and Pacific Islands etc] artists. It is a smorgasbord cultural offering, within the frame of an ‘Indigenous Contemporary Dance Festival’. The audience is left to ponder this context and to experience into the multi-faceted jewel that is Kowhiti over the course of the week. It is curated by Merenia and Tanemahuta Gray.

Tanemahuta Gray makes a radical departure from previous work to present Tike Tane Mahuta. It is a rollicking and times highly entertaining ride propelled by strong and surprising imagery created in response to two albums by Tike Taane. The 5 pieces are excerpts from a planned longer work; however, as yet the narrative thread is obscure. There is a fantastic dance on a couch with Jana Castillo manipulated by hidden dancers; a perfect marriage of music and image. Gray has utilized the choreographic skills of the dancers; Luke Hanna, Castillo, Mark Bonnington, Sharn Te Pou, Andrew Miller, Anna Flaherty and Lauren Byrne, with dynamic aerial tactics to direct a work that with astute dramaturgy will have legs for the Festival circuit.

Guest performers Dancing Earth are under the directorship of Rulan Tangen. They are  an eclectic group of indigenous collaborators, including First Nations people of Blackfoot, Metis, Coushatta, Cambiva, Yaqui, Purepecha, Shoshone, Navajo, Cherokee, Hopi, Tewa, Tiwa, Towa, and Keresan of North, Central and South America. The work Walking the Edge has had a long and thoughtful gestation. It is an ‘inter-tribal contemporary dance expression of Indigenous water perspectives  . . . which is motivated by the urgings of Native grandmothers and invokes powerfully relevant water themes of creation, destruction and renewal’. The dance references a group of Anishnaabeg women who walked  the perimeter of the Great Lakes to call attention to the sacredness of water. This kaupapa results in a colourful and heartfelt dance with an ihi-inducing live music component. The movement vocabulary is wide-ranging, reflecting the variety of backgrounds of the performers. There is an impressive traditional hoop dance. Many of the costumes and instruments were  unfortunately corralled by NZ Customs which must have been disconcerting for the performers as they are an essential component of the work, but despite this, the message is well delivered. The performers are offering a Pow Wow Workshop at Te Papa at noon which will be an opportunity to delve deeper into their work.

Their connection with tangata whenua is through Jack Gray, who was in residency with them earlier this year and who makes a brief appearance in the work. He is credited with choreographic input, and Terri Ripeka Crawford is also credited with being a provocateur early in the project.

These guests have travelled a great distance to bring their poignant message to us at a time when our own struggling rivers become sites for negotiation between the economic imperatives of dairying and the need to provide clean natural waterways for our children.  They remind us that  ‘Ancient and futuristic, our dances are an elemental language of bone and blood memory in motion’. This group also performs site specific rituals where they work closely to empower a particular community; in this context their dances would be even more powerful.

Louise Potiki-Bryant presents Kiri in collaboration with potter Paerau Corneal. Potiki -Bryant is prone in a pool of projection to begin. She has masterful control of projection and image as she twitches butoh-esque into life in an expression of skin, clay movement and form.  This leads to a physical interaction with Paerau where the body becomes the site of the potter’s craft.  Potiki -Bryant  an impressive repertoire of solo installation works. She is an inimitable and incisive visual artist, however attention needs to paid to the development of the choreographic texture of the work, which becomes repetitive in terms of vocabulary and rhythm and then fails to sustain the strength of the opening images.

Masepah Banu is from the Torres Strait Islands. He brings his home to the stage with his voice and ancient movement patterns. As the ash dust from his body swirls, we are transported and enchanted.

His legs move in intriguing patterns and his feet, fringed in his grass skirt, strike the earth one moment then skip with breathtaking dexterity the next. The Opera House stage becomes the site for a dance that has caressed the earth for eons. It is refreshingly unaffected, and the context for the work is obvious in a way that the other works on the programme, due to eclecticism of contemporary forms, have lost.  The second part of this dance loses momentum once the initial beauty of the sail boat image has lost its resonance.

Merenia Gray presents her substantial work Rangimarie – Peace to conclude the programme; Footnote Dance Company are her refined collaborators, along with Luke Hanna and Tanemahuta Gray plus accomplished animation and sound designers. This sophisticated and aesthetically strong work is broken into three sections beginning with a compelling solo by Emily Adams, a haunted and searching presence, articulating visceral grief as the wind blows through the whare at Mitimiti while rain falls and falls and the dancer strives for reconciliation with nature. This is the most successful choreographic output by Gray to date. A duet, Rongo Mā Tāne,  between Luke Hanna on the ground and Tanemahuta Gray in the air, brings back the aerial component which leads to some distinctive, symmetrical choreography.  The device becomes clumsy once the dancer hits the ground, despite the obvious complicité with Hanna.  From there the work moves into more predictable territory in the third section, Whai Atu. It is interesting to see the [Pakeha] Footnote dancers embrace the traditional components of rakau and movement derived from kapa haka. Again the work has a choreographic surety which leads to a satisfying conclusion.

During the evening, a deeply moved Suzanne Renner was honoured with a Kowhiti Life-Time Achievement Award for her contribution to the development of dance in Aotearoa.

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