If Lima is anything to go by, Pacific contemporary performing arts are thriving. Mixed Nuts 2- Underworld brings the spirit of the Pacific, fresh and sparkling, into the now but with haunting tones of the ta and va of the past. An invigorating mix that the audience clearly appreciates and enjoys.

Quite literally the first half of the show Underworld is a promenade akin to a ride on a ghost train, as the audience are taken on rites of passage from the light to the dark. Walking around the many spaces of the stunning Mangere Arts Centre, we first encounter spirits of warriors guiding a new soul to the afterlife. Performers Italia, Moses, Paulo, Aisea, Walter, Lologa and Onetoto are quintessential of the evening ahead, mixing captivating song, traditional Pacific movement vocabularies and skilled performance quality – oh, and just a touch of butoh.

Continuing on our stroll, a series of pieces choreographed by the dancers present us with fairytales transposed in hip hop, with feisty witches, hauntings and, my particular favourite, The Lupes. Lupes are doves, but these are in the afterlife and, choreographed by Mario Faumui, have taken up a mesmerizing and somewhat sinister Samoan vogue dance. It all sounds very unlikely when you write it down, but the charisma and precise performances of dancers Beni, Elaine, Loretta, Darren and Valentino bring us into a dark place where the previous messengers of peace have lost their souls somewhere on the way. By the way our MC Mele is the real deal!       

In part two, four works are previewed from a recent three week long mentored workshop funded by Creative New Zealand; a good investment in the future of performing arts.  Two pieces from emerging Tongan contemporary dance theatre choreographers, Sesilia Pusiaki and Amanaki Prexcott-Faletau, offer some very personal stories that are engaging in quite different ways.

Pusiaki’s sharp wit captures snapshots of the values of Tongan women in the shape of three sisters and a Greek chorus of their alter egos who appear in the women’s dreamworlds. It is quite other worldly, yet strangely real, and makes for some hirsute hilarity – female grooming will just never be the same again!

In a quite different tone, the personal narrative of Prexcott-Faletau makes for a compelling and deeply moving auto-narrative about differences in a family full of men. Amanaki translates as ‘hope’ – I don’t want to give too much away because you really should go and see it.

The other two works are by Lima’s director Olivia Taouma. A short film, Father, filmed and edited by Samson Chan-Boon, and a dance/physical theatre work for nine dancers, Sala’s World, are ambitious pieces featuring the evening’s characteristic mix of humour, drama, contemporary dance, contact work and Pacific worldview. There are some involving moments in these pieces, and it will be interesting to see how the film/live performance mix develops during the upcoming workshops before the show takes to the stage again in September.

In Lima there are choreographers and performers to watch out for in the future.  The Pacific Institute of Performing Arts, from which they graduated,  seems to be offering an important and needed pathway in tertiary education for Aotearoa, in which Pacific legacies, past and present, are cherished.

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