In Pacific Triple Bill Auckland-based Pacific choreographers provide responses to what contemporary Pacific dance means to them. The results bring a sense of the diverse identities that comprise Auckland’s Pacific dance diaspora.  Here are some of words to describe the show – fabulous, family, friends, fierce, frantic, fearless, fresh, frisson, funky and precocious (more of that later).

Fine Fatale. Mario Faumui, assistant choreographers Amanaki Prescott Faletau and Raukawa Tuhara,and his crew of femmes fatales could give Jennifer Lopez lessons in how to be fabulous. There may be many who would pay to learn how to move like that and look so utterly ‘fabulishess’ (seriously). The complex and furious co-ordination of measured arm gestures and hip sways, the affirmative attack in their movement, and the predatory sassy catwalk sashays smashed quite a few conventional boundaries. In fact the combination of siva and Voguing, and whatever else is on fire in this clash of tradition, masculine, feminine, past, now and future brings a brave new world of dancing in Polynesian Vogue. Mario – send Jennifer a video.

Also out of Olivia Taouma’s LIMA dance theatre family, the dancers, performing her Home, Land & Sea dance tenderly, powerfully and assuredly. This thoughtful exploration of homegrown urban youth’s worldviews provides an emphatic Pacific and Maori influenced statement of intent and political nous. Expressed through a mix of traditional voice, ritual, costume, dignified oratory, street cool movement, traditional contemporary dance vocabulary there are many magical moments. One such – the Maori warrior heaving the waka of other dancers out of the ocean onto Aotearoa’s shores, as if welcoming or rescuing them from drowning. Those divine Polynesian hands are the real cultural deal, as is the weaving of voice and song (coach Nastassia Wolfgramm), putting the icing on the cake to deliver their forceful message – these young people are NZ’s future and they offer us a hopeful vision (put that in your electoral ledger Mr Banks).

Charlene Tedrow’s all-female Spiritus Aitu is becoming a forceful statement of environmental awareness via explorations of Polynesian ancient beliefs. Carefully shaped, traditionally Pacific, undulating curving torsos and hips provide statements of female strength, lending tradition the upper hand as befitting Tedrow’s message. Her concern is that we are not listening to our planet, and that if we don’t change our consumerism we stand to lose everything precious. Magical moments? Malevolent, possessed spirits consuming hibiscus flowers and wreaking devastation. The frozen devastation that a tsunami brings; more moving than a whole hour of earthquakes the other night.

The live drumming (Leki Jackson-Bourke, STKS and Tom) that is featured during the show adds texture and depth. It would have been polite to list the other music sources that were exhaustively called upon.

Oh! The pace at which these choreographers are developing their work is seriously and admirably precocious. Well done Pacific Dance New Zealand and tempo for bringing these works to central Auckland.

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