KEY POINTS:
I'm in a room with three men with a combined age of around 140 years. They have the fit, lithe bodies of men half their age, and energy to burn. Taane Mete and Taiaroa Royal, two of our finest and most experienced dancers, are pouring sweat in the rehearsal room as they work through the process of learning a new work choreographed by another giant of our dance world, Michael Parmenter.
"Ouch! Too high on my back," winces Royal as Mete loops over his spine. "Stop there - it's strange," calls Parmenter, as they pull another movement apart. Problems have to be solved, a high level of grace achieved.
That was last week, the culmination of a learning period during which, as Royal explained, "We've had a few meltdowns".
This week, the 20-minute piece, called Hand-To-Hand, is complete and in final rehearsals before Mete and Royal fly to Cincinnati on Sunday to take part in the Lance Armstrong Foundation Gala Living Dance Project, to raise funds for cancer awareness. They will be accompanied by rehearsal director Daniel Cooper, also formerly from Black Grace, while the music is written by Eden Mulholland, who trained as a dancer and now composes music for dance.
They are going to Cincinnati by invitation, all costs paid by the project, and their dance will be the finale of the evening, the only international act on the bill. It is all happening because project organiser Dr Lisa West-Smith saw Royal and Mete dance with Black Grace at Jacob's Pillow in the United States four years ago.
"She loved our work within Black Grace," says Royal. "She hunted us down from the other side of the world. Through various websites in New Zealand she found people who could pass on her contact to me. We are not getting paid ourselves to do this but we get the chance to premiere a little bit of our work for a good cause."
"A little bit of our work" refers to the fact that Hand-To-Hand is actually the fourth act of a new five-piece dance called Tama Ma which the pair will premiere as the first production of their Okareka Dance Company, formed last year. Tama Ma will debut in Auckland in October during the Tempo Festival.
The first act is a filmed dance, followed by an act choreographed by Douglas Wright. Mete and Royal will choreograph acts three and five, with Parmenter's piece in-between. Drag plays a key role in the work.
"We decided to invite both Michael and Douglas because they are both our mentors," says Royal. "When we went to Douglas the first thing he asked us was, 'Are we doing drag?' because drag is a part of my and Taane's lives. We wanted the piece to be about us and our careers and how we got into dance. We said, 'Yes we will be', and he said, 'Lovely' because he would like to deconstruct the drag, stripping away all the layers that a drag persona has, the uglier side of drag, the early morning one when your makeup is falling off and your feet are hurting."
In Hand-To-Hand, both dancers will wear suits designed by Elizabeth Whiting. Only a few items of clothing are discarded. "We start by taking the jackets off first, then the shoes, then the socks," says Mete. At the end of Wright's act, they will be down to G-strings.
Mete explains that he and Royal are frequently asked to do "quite a few gigs internationally". "I'm aware that the people who ask us, they know of our experience and our professionalism. They know they are going to get high-quality work that has depth and meaning, not just fluff. [The Cincinnati project] will be two Maori veterans dancing their craft to an audience that will be appreciative. For men in our 40s, we are still holding our craft."
Mete and Royal first worked together in 1993, in Douglas Wright's epic work Forever, and have collaborated on projects ever since. "Tai and I have an intuition," says Mete. "Because we've been working together for so many years, we naturally follow each other's patterns; we almost know what the other person is thinking. It's a very important relationship to keep building on. If you are not working with an experienced body, which doesn't know where to put their bodies at a certain time at a certain place, it can be frustrating, and it can injure the other person."
The intuitive communication process includes Parmenter. "Absolutely," he says. "Something happened today. I was disappointed with what I had done with the very ending. I was getting the guys to run through and follow on from the flow of the movement and they ended up with this ending that is a million times better than what we had before.
"Things like that only come about when you have dancers who are so experienced. I feel complete confidence in trusting them."
There's only one downside to the Cincinnati trip as far as Parmenter is concerned. He's not going. "I am green with envy. But there will be more to do before we start in October."
What: Hand-To-Hand, choreographed by Michael Parmenter, danced by Taiaroa Royal and Taane Mete.
Where and when: Lance Armstrong Foundation Gala Living Dance Project, Cincinnati, April 18.
