A perfect evening, fine, and so still you can hear the waterfall over beyond the lake.  The trees on the opposite shore and the nearby reeds are reflected in the smooth lake surface. It is still day but this area has already lost its sunlight. A wooden stage directly on the water’s edge and tiered concrete seating for the audience: a mix of families, young, elderly, couples and singles, a good-sized and varied group. Flowers strewn in a circle on the stage. To our left and back from the stage, microphones, stage lights, cameras, musical instruments, laptops, tablets, wiring, amplifier, beat box, lighting desk, musicians and technicians. The musicians tune up and check the sounds, and audience members wander down to sit on deck chairs, cushions, picnic rugs, or straight on the concrete.  The time is perfect for this event – both day and night, dryness for sound and lighting gear, and comfortable warmth for the audience.  All are present.

A lone musician begins, with (mostly Pasifika) wind and percussion instruments and a beat box that adds tones, rhythm, harmonies and overlaying of sound. Ten dancers, in dresses and holding single flowers, process slowly from the back of the audience, some in black, some in black and pale/white, and one in simple white dress (the central character; focus of the attention of the other women; a young, inexperienced one?). No eye contact is made with the audience. The ‘young one’ lies in the middle of the stage, overseen, cared for, protected by two in black. The other women lie spread out, alone, at various levels and in various poses, along the surrounding concrete (I am wishing that these women could be lying on soil or grass, rather than concrete). The movement of all is slow, seamless, continuous, and the carers are attentive. The recumbent women: sinuous hands and arms, introverted, focused, struggling, writhing, grasping, reaching, hypnotic, haunting: present within their own selves.  Primordial, embryonic, amoebic, being formed from the earth, one with the elements. Two more musicians join in, creating sound on keyboard, computer and electric guitar. All dancers move slowly to the stage. Sound, dance and lighting change, but still hypnotically slow, continuous, haunting. Individuals in a group, slowly evolving, intertwining, yet with individual flavour, style and colour.  Strength, control, and unity of movement, sound, vision and intent; individuals contributing to the whole.  The lights move slowly, independently or together, changing colour, dynamic and atmosphere, as the day grows darker.  All have presence.

I begin to sense timelessness, women’s rituals, ancient cultures brought into the present, nurturing, cleansing, traveling on a life journey. The women gather again on the stage looking out over the lake.  A singer appears at a microphone: “We are woman, we are strong”. Individual dancers break out with virtuosity, speed, sinuousness, freedom and control, and then blend again with the group. A yellow rowing boat is pulled slowly and smoothly in to the bank of the lake where it remains standing, yellow, empty, inviting, waiting and enigmatic. The dancers move slowly, elegantly, in perpetual motion, together, yet each taking a turn to carry, support, nurture the young one. They move through the audience and back to the stage. Moving as one, yet as individuals: women who are present to each other.

The ‘older’ women give the young one their flowers until her hands are full; they honour her; she is special today.  She is guided slowly and calmly towards the boat by the lakeshore. She steps in and remains standing as the boat is slowly and smoothly drawn towards our left until out of sight. A journey to womanhood? A myth-like ritualistic rite of passage? The goddess, Mother Nature, the unseen world, traveling towards womanhood, a spiritual, cosmic, belonging-ness. The other women continue to move in unity, sometimes together, sometimes individually.  The sound and lights continue to repeat, morph, call, enlighten. The ‘young one’ returns still standing in the boat as it slowly moves from the left back to its resting place by the shore. She is changed – she now wears a darker outer garment over her white dress. She rejoins the group, they turn their backs on the audience and their focus grows again towards the lake. Water is poured and flung. Water, night, darkness, another realm: an unseen presence.

Finally, pairs help individuals to slide into the lake, and all move away in chest- deep water. With reaching, writhing, sinuous hands their bodies and lives become one with the water, elemental, cleanser, unifier, nurturer, essential to life. As the lights and sound fade out we are left with the night and the dimly seen figures with arms and hands and fingers still moving, remaining one with the water.

Calming, thought-provoking, enigmatic, beautiful: a present presence.  

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