Review: Prime Cuts and Fresh Cuts at Tempo at Tapac

Prime Cuts was work from five established choreographers.

Prime Cuts was a programme of selected works from five "established" choreographers, Fresh Cuts is a showcase of works from "emerging" talents.

Both evenings proved to be interesting, varied and festively fun - but the emergents hit significantly more high notes than the senior practitioners.

Rosalie van Horik's Shade, at the end of the Fresh Cuts programme was a substantial choreography for five dancers.

It was complex and gripping with some beautiful plies and a dramatic progression in mood from the cloistered to the confrontational.

Josephine Searles' Amapolas opened the programme with two dancers in black cocktail dresses and heels.

The choreography was as snappy as the finger-clicking accompaniment and although the heels might have been the cause of a few wobbles in the sustained balances dancer Zahra Killeen-Chance was riveting to watch.

She appeared again in her own work (jointly created with Alysha Firbank) Pace, and confirmed her considerable talent.

Justin Haiu's Resilience was a great fusion of break and contemporary dancing and Mia Mason's Waiting for Violet another absorbing piece performed by the contortionistic Carlie Angel. Gina Janus' piece on graffiti In The Streets was a bit scruffy - beyond the intention of its costumes.

Highlight of the previous evening's Prime Cuts was the extraordinary sight of heavily pregnant Gabrielle Thomas dancing with great fluidity and strength, her wondrous belly and a blue cane chair. Her live performance was set against filmed underwater sequences to create marvellous duet (quartet?) celebrating the "celestial grotesque resculpting" of emergent motherhood.

Melanie Turner's Texture was an evocative and quietly satisfying essay on observations made in her Te Huia garden, all clambering vines, spiralling fronds and the twitch and flick of birdsong.

The duet for two men, re-set by Kristian Larsen and Geordan Wilcox, could have been a choreographic firework with the choreographers/performers coming from opposite poles of Planet Dance. But Wilcox was just his usual slim and suave balletic self while Larsen harumphed muscularly and shook his fringe over his face. A bit ho hum.

Anna Bate's Score was dressed for the edge but got stuck in the clownish and Sefa Enari's tribute to Samoan legend was very legendary. NB for Tempo people: some autobiographical notes in these programmes would have been great as would a little more light between items, so the punters could read them.