Some days you have to get up really early to win, even when that ripe worm doesn’t particularly appeal.

So it was with my thirst to experience Atamira Dance Company’s new work Tātai Whetū in the Vault space at Q Theatre on Saturday, a thirst that was sadly not assuaged.

I failed. We failed. Dismally.

I missed out because the show only had seats for thirty-five bums and mine wasn’t to be one of them, so no complimentary review tickets this time. Sad yes, but I get it, that having a paying bottom, perched in anticipation upon each seat, rather than a freebie (or two) for a reviewer, is absolutely critical to the success of any arts venture. No matter, Atamira is great, and I wish them better than well. I wish them forever joy and outstanding ongoing artistic success.

I’ve been an enthusiastic fan of Atamira since it was founded in 2000, in part because co-founder Dolina Wehipeihana (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Tūkorehe) and my wife have been firm friends since childhood. Dolina was, if fact, one of our ‘useless bridesmaids’ (self-named, nothing to do with me) in 2001. We’ve remained fans of Atamira through thick (there’s been plenty of that) and thin (plenty of that too) and that’s where my life was first enriched by the sublime artistry of Louise Pōtiki Bryant (Kāi Tahu, Kāti Mamoe, Waitaha) who, along with Wehipeihana, was a founding member of the Atamira collective.

Cool segue, eh?

It’s fair to say that Pōtiki Bryant is a unique talent.

That’s not just me fangirling, plenty of others have said so too. Her awards speak for themselves. She was the Ngāi Tahu Artist in Residence at the Dunedin School of Art in 2003, and, in the same year, was named ‘Best New Choreographer’ by the New Zealand Listener. In 2007 she held a six-week Wild Creations Residency which enabled her to work at Aoraki/Mt Cook on her short film ‘Aoraki’ which has been shown, with acclaim, at international film festivals. In 2009 she was funded by Creative New Zealand to undertake an internship with Santee Smith in Toronto. She and Smith have collaborated on a number of multimedia video and dance works since. In 2014 she was the recipient of the Harriet Friedlander Residency, which enabled her to live and work for a year in New York City.

To top it all off, Pōtiki Bryant was made an Arts Foundation Laureate in 2019.

That’s impressive stuff I’m sure you’ll agree but, while these awards and acknowledgements speak clearly to Potiki Bryant’s acknowledged talent and tenacity, they miss, by my reckons, two of her greatest, and most enduring, qualities: her capacity to build sustainable, long-term collaborations with artists of talent, matched with her insuperable – and overt – courage. While many in the arts milieu turn burning bridges into an art form, Pōtiki Bryant has an enviable little black book filled with the names of the illustrious, all of whom will happily dance over hot coals to work with her again.

In my view, no multi-disciplinary artist makes more expert, more profoundly pragmatic, moving image works than Pōtiki Bryant. If she wasn’t the outstanding dancer that she is, I’d be saying ‘bugger off, girl, and let’s just look at the pictures.’

And listen to the music!

In her excellent interview with Sam Brooks’ on ‘The Spinoff’ she explains ‘I weave dance, performance, video art, animation, painting and drawing together. I combine these forms to create textured video artworks for gallery spaces, solo and group dance works for theatre spaces and films.’

And for the world.

She continues, ‘for me, it’s about having the vision for the entire work. I use intuitive drawing and painting as a tool for my spiritual and mental health. (This has) evolved to where I weave my drawings and paintings into my video and dance practice.’

She talks about how the whenua changes in its relationship with water. Living at Piha, Cyclone Gabrielle affected her deeply. ‘Experiencing the whenua completely change shape around us made me reflect on how Papatūānuku moves, shifts and changes form. I’ve related this to my own experience of being a woman, how my body is never static, and how as I age, I’m shifting and changing, just as the whenua does.’

Pūheke is the result and, as always, Pōtiki Bryant puts it all on the line. She tells us that ‘ko wai ko au, ko au ko wai’ (‘I am the water, the water is me’) and for 60 minutes, alone on stage, she owns that claim.

Unlike many works that have healing at their core, Pūheke feels complete, like a job well done. It’s not, of course, healing is lifelong and outlasts the withering of the muscles and the grizzling of the hair, but Pūheke is comforting in its unity, satisfying in its physical, aural, and visual perfection. As the 60 minutes progresses there’s a suggestion of ‘do the mahi and it’ll all be OK, but do the work, don’t shy away from it.’

Good advice that!

Pūheke means ‘to flow’ – of course it does.

We’re told that Pūheke is ‘a new solo work emerging out of Pōtiki Bryant’s personal journey towards healing from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)/Māuiui whakaauau.’

So, what’s OCD and do we really need to know? No, we don’t, but it helps.

‘OCD is a misunderstood condition characterised by continuous intrusive thoughts which can lead to compulsions. Compulsions are actions/rituals that attempt to quell the anxiety brought about by the thoughts, however they only serve to increase the anxiety long-term. OCD can be very time consuming and debilitating in everyday life.’

Ain’t that the truth!

As part of her healing journey Pōtiki Bryant has ‘utilised mindful illustration and movement tools inspired by the movement of water and atua wāhine (female deities/ancestors) from Te Ao Māori. In the creation of a drawing, Louise allows her thoughts to flow like water in time with each line drawn on a page. Over time her thoughts quieten and transmute into the drawing itself. Pūheke is inspired by this flow.’

Then you make a video, get hubby to throw together a few sounds, make a few moves, then put it all on the stage?

Easy, eh?

No, it’s not!

Ignore my fake cynicism because there’s absolutely nothing perfunctory, nothing unconsidered, in Pōtiki Bryant’s work.

Nor are her processes simple, nor are they without challenges despite the perfect and seemingly effortless end product. This is why I laud Pōtiki Bryant’s courage (and that of her collaborators), because this, as always, is her actual life, unvarnished, out there for us to pick over, comment on (that can be hazardous in 2024), consume, and grow from (or not), presented with not a hint of narcissism, no ‘look at me up here doing this thing’, just work that honours who she is, honours her health challenges, honours the processes that have made this exceptional work possible.

‘Pūheke is also inspired by mauri, the life force, animating energy that is essential for the functioning of everything. Pūheke is an expression of Pōtiki Bryant’s mauri ‘evolving and transforming over time and guided by the powerful Atua Wāhine, Parawhenuamea who governs the freshwater that flows from the mountains to the sea.’

As the performance begins, we are confronted by a mid-size, centre stage screen with inventive projections which include Pōtiki Bryant like a silhouette cut out at its heart. We’re left alone with the images just long enough for our own inner dialogue to kick in. When Pōtiki Bryant finally appears, she is in deep shadow and, for a recurring moment, time stands still. This is the dancer I first saw in 2000, and she is, in many ways, unchanged, yet changed utterly. Her movements are lyrical, flowing, arms and elegant hands, upright, bent slightly at the waist. As the narrative unfolds, I am astonished by what each new layer reveals and where it takes me. There is silence beyond the magnificence of Paddy Free’s score, that silence that fine artists know so well and crave, the silence that says gently, ‘now pay attention because you know you really want to.’

She moves easily from right to left as the screen enlarges too, images containing language, words, there and gone, and the movement patterns evolve too. Hair is let down, and without my really noticing, she has moved out of the shadows and is downstage centre. She remains water but in a changed, more confident mode, and the imagery behind her continues, persistent, unrelenting, ever so watchable, as she unravels her physical narrative to Free’s beautifully executed polyphonic sound, sound merged impeccably with her own deeply reflective images, all fused in time in an enthralling, repeating, narrative loop.

At curtain call, the audience for Pūheke expresses its deep satisfaction as I do, with prolonged applause and gratitude. Souls are well satisfied.

Awaiting our chariot outside Q at 10pm I ask my young friend if he remembers Louise and he says yes, he’s seen her lots of times. He’s beyond impressed. He understands the narrative and the message. He describes his high functioning autism as his ‘gift’ so he really gets this stuff. I ask if he remembers Paddy Free and he says no. I show him a photo of Free and he not only remembers him but spends the next twenty minutes describing the times (there have been plenty) and the music. Names might, from time to time elude him, but the music, never.

Pūheke has only one performance in the festival, sorry about that, but you can hook into Louise Pōtiki Bryant’s choreographic genius on the 17^th and 18^th of October at Q in the Rangatira room where her work In Transit is part of the Rua double bill. As a bonus, you’ll also get to enjoy the talented Ross McCormack’s Matter.

See you there.

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