It seems to me that there are two themes (probably quite unplanned) that successfully come out of these performances – the nature of performance before an audience in a theatre, and the other – celebrating the older woman.

Circle in Box is how Val Smith named her contribution – “summoning the ghosts of dance spectatorship. In situ”;

This means that we, the audience waiting outside, are ushered in ,to be directed not towards seats, but to surround a largish circle chalked onto the floor of the stage.  There we stand waiting for directions, something to happen.  One spectator puts himself into the circle to entertain us.  In the end, we move to the seating, where we wait or talk, with only the producer, reclining on the floor, and a stage manager to look at.  Are we were being tested so that performance would only start when chatter and fidgeting stop?.No!  The stage is cleared and Val Smith takes a bow.  Well, I guess our past led us to do more or less what was expected of us in the black box theatre.

A further piece, Katie Burton’s This is Ours, is a research project that “investigates a shared exchange between performers and audience”.  The four dancers, Burton, Georgie Goater, Shanelle Lenehan and Jessie McCall, start off by pulling back the side curtains to reveal bare walls, while a recorded voice introduces each – to tell us that Burton is pregnant and likes to smile at the audience (which we can see for ourselves) and other similarly interesting facts!  They then divide into two pairs and ascend the stairs up the banked seating, one falling, the other catching as they go.  One pair walks along seats to displace the audience (it is a full house), another dancer is laid down to stretch across the laps – all this amid good humoured laughing and apparently no embarrassment.

The audience is then offered the opportunity of a new perspective and many walk out onto the stage to see the group actually dance.  This is to a spiky piece (from Josh Rutter) that invites angled sharply divided movements from body arms and legs – but then the dancers lie down with arms outstretched and we are invited to lift the bodies off the floor.  This is done – with glee!

Burton watches and then talks of the background, how she wants to create a really thorough connection with the audience.  She asks for comments – which come happily.  What I wanted was more dance!

Felicity Molloy’s piece Disarm is danced by three generations of women – the older, Marianne Schultz, the younger, Tallulah Holly-Massey, and the very young, Emma Kemp, all of whom move beautifully so that a unison part of the piece looks fresh and great.  The backdrop shows images in black and white that I do not recognise, but see as natural shapes, perhaps as a reminder of change, the movement of time.  The music (a mix, also by Josh Rutter, of John Tavener and the Irish singer, Iarla OLionaird) provides a gentle harmonious background.

Schultz commences by reaching out, balancing, and then goes on into the mothering role, circling the other two.  She plays games, throwing a ball to each of Emma, the child, and Tallulah, the adult, perhaps passing on a heritage.  But she also extends herself on her own, reaching out further than before, in the end returning to support the others.  Holly-Massey’s solo was freer still, more active and adventurous as might be expected of a younger woman.

The piece did charm, and let us understand more about the choreographer, Molloy, herself, whose life has mixed the roles of mother, grandmother and dancer.

The final piece Mareikura (dictionary translation – noble lady, or female supernatural being), with dancers Carol Smith, Hinekuranui Lisa Jane Smith, Jasmine Castle and Erana Wipou-Reneti, choreographed by Tia Reihana to acknowledge “whakapapa that connect us to her and her to our wahine atua” (dictionary – woman god).

A shopping trolley is left centre stage and the piece starts with a karanga, (or karakia?) as the four dancers, the eldest with grey hair, all in black, enter to join in.  We hear a child’s voice, bird calls, the noise of a blank tv screen, and the matriarch lets roll out a long dark purple train to extend almost across the stage.  It is gathered up and away and put into the trolley.  This trolley serves many purposes – it is used as a pram, part of a haka, something to party with, to row from, to wash hair in, for someone to go away in, to be paddled like a waka taua (war canoe).  Each of the dancers is clearly experienced in movement and it is smoothly executed to the music of Moumou and Torete   te Kiore by Whirimako Black.

Finally to the haunting music of the koauau (flute) the matriarch is given back her train now in even folds to cradle it in her arms, as if a hurt child, her face showing how painful life can, be as the light fades on the group.  Some of the audience then spontaneously stand to salute the piece with a song, but we are all moved.

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