Authors such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende, their literary imaginings and magical realism, have informed the play's mythical-land like setting; playing with kinetic sand, ostensibly designed for children to play with, has provided a more tangible way to show its shifting sands and dusty horizons.
But the provocation comes from a far harsher reality. The idea for Dust Pilgrim - a Tale of Freedom came partly as Nolan and Parker were shocked by the April 2014 kidnapping of 276 girls from Chibok, Nigeria by jihadist group Boko Haram. "That incident was a big fuel for this work," says Nolan. "We were outraged that something like this can happen in this day and age and that they still haven't found most of the girls. We started talking about the idea of women and oppression and the current climate where it seems to be pervasive.
"We looked at it from the pressures on women, which can be oppressive, all the way to women who live in societies where the oppression is overt. I guess you could say from the everyday to the massive global situation."
They chose to make the scenario in Dust Pilgrim more complex by making the oppressor a woman; a mother of a young girl who is "trapped in a life built on dust and shifting sands" but who makes a daring bid for freedom.
Without wanting to become cliched, Parker says the premise is that whether you're dealing with a more subtle kind of oppression or a violent and terrible regime, change can come about through the actions of one individual doing one small thing.
"One small action can start an entire movement which threatens very established and powerful systems."
They describe the now nearly finished product as epic but intimate. A cast of three - Alison Bruce (The Almighty Johnsons, Calendar Girls), Ella Becroft (Coverband, Power Rangers Megaforce) and Tom Eason - have spent about a year, on and off, devising the story.
It's Bruce's fourth collaboration with Red Leap.
"I'm most excited by theatre which isn't domestic and I've always wanted to be a part of that more physical theatre," says Bruce. "I love to watch it and I think it's exciting to be involved with because it's about making your whole self work, about having a strong sense of imagination and what's possible in terms of finding ways to magnify that and create scenes and stories. You can do that with words but when you do it physically, you can do so much more."
Bruce, who appeared in eight of the nine seasons of The Arrival, was born and spent her first eight years in Tanzania. She says these formative years left her with an acute awareness of oppression and social inequality. It also helped develop her understanding of what it feels like to be an outsider.
"We came to New Zealand when I was 8 and it was huge culture shock," she recalls. "There was a wonderful imaginative openness to growing up in Africa that I think has definitely fuelled a playfulness and willingness to try new things out, which you need when you're working on devised theatre."
What: Dust Pilgrim - a Tale of Freedom
Where & when: Q Loft, June 4-13
