The creative excellence and exquisite performance of four new works collectively titled Taumata brought the final weekend of Tempo Dance Festival 2016 to close in fine style.
Capacity audiences in Q Theatre's Rangatira auditorium greeted these works with resounding applause and heartfelt cheers.
Katie Rudd, Carl Tolentino, Chrissy Kokiri, and Chris Ofanoa, from the NZ Dance Company, delicately flitted and flocked, dipped and darted, perched and preened in Bianca Hyslop's A Murmuration, aptly named for the antics of a flock of starlings which inspired the choreography. A sinuous looping score by Rowan Pierce echoed the spiralling and, at times, swishing moves, appropriately supporting the dancers' antics.
Okareka Dance Company co-artistic director Taane Mete presented Manawa, a solo about the power of the first and last breaths we take, in honour of his mother 's recent death. Delicate lighting by Vanda Karolczak marked his passage across the stage in a series of complex extended phrases with extraordinary detailing and integration of breath. His sorrow and grief were a palapable presence; a complex score by Paul McLaney added resonance to the different stages in the dancer's journey.
Rose Philpott, Jahra Rager Wasasala, and Grace Woollett, from Foster Group, presented Sarah Foster-Sproull's Sisters of the Back Crow, a tautly intimate, ceaselessly moving, powerful trio co-developed with the dancers. Wearing simple sheaths of black or red, the women appeared to change identity by the moment, from sisters or friends to priestess and goddesses, or perhaps the mythological Furies.
