KEY POINTS:
The opening soliloquy - rounded vowels, rolling eyes in the beseeching, upturned, bewhiskered face of Tamati Patuwai - is of Shakespearian dimension. But the tragedy that follows is pure Once Were Warriors.
Atamira Dance Collective's new work, choreographed by Moss Paterson, quickly dispenses with sonorous sounds and enters the crudest vernacular - literally. The spoken word, primarily as violent and vulgar interjection, powerfully peppers the proceedings.
The action takes place beneath a marvellous representation of a Maori whare, stripped to its barbed-wire beams and hanging, separated from the earth.
Whakairo's choreography is inspired by the lines and patterns of the traditional carving for which it is named; its subject matter by the recent deaths of Maori babies at the hands of their whanau.
Heavy, bro.
But Paterson and his seven dancer/collaborators give the unpleasantly familiar statistics and arguments, accusations and excuses, the immediacy of a heartbeat, the bitterness of fresh bile.
The violence is far from gratuitous, if a trifle too long in the middle section. We quickly got the point.
There was tremendous art in the opening movements, as figures entwined and realigned, in close, as in touching, formations, reminiscent of the totem pole and the strength and cohesion of a complete culture.
As that connectedness and cohesion disintegrated we were led into the ugliness of what is not exclusively - as those interjections also reminded us - but is significantly, a Maori problem.
Kelly Nash and Peter Takapuna play pivotal, parental roles with powerful honesty. Gaby Thomas and Jack Gray evoke the innocence of childhood.
Maaka Pepene and the stunning Louise Potiki Bryant add their own drama and the aforementioned set (Brett Graham), sound score (Paddy Free) and lighting and costumes (Vanda Karolczak and Vicki Slow) complete a stunning collaboration of fine technique and unfettered and unpretentious emotion.
They may not present a solution, but finish with a final scene of some retribution for the offender and a slow rolling hope of coming together again, somehow, some time.
New Caledonian guest choreographer Richard Digoue's Symbole et Realite is a lukewarm opening. Beautiful projected images of mountain streams and rolling clouds are a full-on cliche. The company looked great in the explosive ensemble sections but too much was merely yawn-inspiring.
