The New Zealand Dance Company's double bill, The Absurdity of Humanity, brings together two works that offer two alternate visions of the future.
Matter, by Ross McCormack, explores a world inhabited by a small band of people who come across five pole-like structures; Whispers from Pandora's Box, by Lina Limosani, considers the aftermath of opening the mythical Pandora's Box and the impact of the evils let loose on the world.
McCormack has recently returned to New Zealand after a decade of dancing with world-leading contemporary dance company Les Ballets C de la B, based in Belgium. With a substantial series of commissioned dance works already produced in Australia and New Zealand, he has worked intensively with the company's dancers in the studio for the past month, along with the five pole-like structures created as the set for Matter, and composer Jason Wright, with whom he has made seven dance works.
McCormack is collaborative. The composer and the set are in the studio with the dancers as the work is being made. "I have asked the dancers to think about why they are here in this strangely empty world, what they would do if they came across these weathered poles as they wander through the empty landscape, and the work has developed from there," he says.
