This is a performance that has rich layers overlaying rich layers. It is light. It is delighting. It is a memorial. It is a tribute. We are carried to 70s South Auckland for a dance party full of abandon and vivacity. We are made privy to personal memories that recount the joy of belonging to those communities who gathered at those knees-ups. So too, we are told of the discrimination, poverty and illness that they experienced. There is a measured counterpoint so that the sparkle covers grit.

Ieremia’s spoken word sections underpin the show’s aspects of flamboyance and frivolity. He gives us the commentary that asks us to understand how a relentless capacity to let loose and have a ball is often powered by a driving need to forget tougher things for a while. 

We begin by imagining this evening is all about amateur dance vocabulary — a play with parties. And when the performers release into their fullest technique they keep that vibe of regular humanity.  They are always clearly of very varied ages and body types:  three hyper athletic younger women flit and fly between people with older and more seasoned bodies. So too the balance of gender exceeds just a mixing of men and women. There are young bucks and senior chaps, buxom women and little slips of girls, fluid figures and cross-dressing archetypes. Under the glow of strings of light bulbs and the sometimes turning glitter ball, they celebrate in kaftans, tutus, sequins, lavalava, suits… and all in socks. The benches, balloons and disposable cups say ‘social function’: the socks say ‘dance theatre’.

The performers’ extraordinarily diverse movements generate a comparable layering, with some strands merging and fusing: social partner dance; flurries (and occasional rapids) of traditional Samoan dance motifs; arcs and bridges of full-throttle contemporary dance phrases; and a vast majority of passages and sequences whose originality defies categorising. Many of the quirks (protruding joints and tight undulations) and some of the twists (bottom waggling, floor slides and tripping falls) are laugh-out-loud moments — and delivered just that way. This is a confident performance that is sure of its own strength and depth.

Ieremia’s compositions use a panoply of focussed choreographic devices to synchronise this broad spectrum of movement. Three distinct tempos are combined simultaneously in one section (slow motion, walking pace and fast forward). There is cinematic richness to the frequent use of multiple focal points (figures upfront ‘in shot’, background tableaux supporting the main action, and sudden curious events passing through the scene). The pinnacle of this combination of odd moves and disciplined structures is the rendering of Grace Jones’ La Vie en Rose: in a tight military grid, the dancers shift forward, sidewards and backwards, using tiny measured shuffling steps.  

These dancers really dance to the music. Their feet meet the jiggling pop beats. Their phrasing sails along with the legendary singers crooning and the famous bands’ instruments. There is all the fun, freedom and ease of people letting go, connecting to one another, and getting into the groove. It is the complexity of the performers’ actions that keeps the lyricism from lightweight  whimsy or giddy nostalgia. At first, the dancers seem to be folks having a boogie. Thereafter, their increasingly refined details, deliberate bold feats and nuanced gestures take us inside the world they evoke — into the heart of it all, into the emotional landscape they are traversing.

It is a disco where individuals articulate their narratives with their hands and eyes as well as their steps and shapes. A group pause in an elegant tableau — to which all the others flow, like a soft scrum magnetised to their edges. Sometimes such tableaux turn spectacular: a slight young woman steps on one back after another to climb upwards, till she stands high on the tallest man’s shoulders — then swoons to be caught below.

The cast conjure a community who are familial and anchored in their interwoven lives. One woman is insistent throughout about a plan for going on somewhere else. And it does seem these people came from somewhere and are heading somewhere. 

They are each a character but not cartoons. They have personality and exceed the kind of simple personas dance can sometimes settle upon. Indeed, the oddest element of the mix is to see these people party in the Chamber Hall. This work’s integrity would let it succeed in a rougher site-specific context — a real function hall, perhaps. And its compositional depth is asking for camera  framing: this ball could live on and on in a film.

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