Rising stars' work forms heart of Hou

Nancy Wijohn and Pare Randall were two of the three choreographers whose work was chosen. Photo / Supplied

The pressure is on for Atamira Dance Collective's two rising stars whose first choreographic works for the company form the heart of Hou, a dance performance and Maori arts symposium in Henderson this weekend.

Rehearsals for the two performances have been taking place at Mau's headquarters in the Corban Estate complex.

The cavernous and rather gloomy space offers only slight respite from the heat and humidity as Gaby Thomas puts her six dancers through their paces.

Thomas was one of six collective members who submitted a pitch for the choreographic programme. Her idea for a work, exploring her journey from a childhood in which she was told she was Spanish to an understanding of her Maoriness, was one of three chosen.

Thomas' work in last year's Tempo dance festival featured her dancing magnificently while heavily pregnant against a background of video footage of herself in a similar stage of pregnancy with her first child.

The baby bump of November is now a 14-week-old cherub, who gurgles happily on her playmat then naps in her pram, while Thomas works - until the last 15 minutes of rehearsal time.

At the third and increasingly insistent baby squeak, Thomas simply segues across the barn and scoops the baby into her arms for a discreet snack as she continues to count, instruct, consult and record moves, albeit with an extra rock-a-bye motion for the bundle in her arms.

"Gaby," says Atamira's newly appointed executive director Moss Patterson, "is just one of those people who can do everything. At once."

A second young choreographer chosen for the programme, Pare Randall, has not been so lucky. A new pregnancy, with twins, has caused her to withdraw.

But the third successful contender for an emerging choreographer's role, Nancy Wijohn, is ferociously strong, focused and enthusiastic about the process. Tuhoe Whakapapa is her first choreographic work, based on her discovery of genealogical tables in Elsdon Best's book The Children of the Mist.

Wijohn can trace her Tuhoe family lines, on her mother's side, right back through 17 generations to the captain of the canoe Mataatua.

The resulting work is in three sections that look at Tuhoe myths and magic, tracing the genealogical lines from chart to stage floor to dancers' movement, and a final section, incorporating lots of lifts, which deals with Wijohn's question on how to hold and share this knowledge of whakapapa.

All though her years at Epsom Girls Grammar School, Wijohn was focused on becoming a doctor and took subjects to that end. Intensely physical, her kinetic energy went into sports. She played Auckland rep netball.

"Whakapapa tended to go in one ear and out the other," she says. Her dance career began with a chance audition for a place in Mika's AUT course. "I went with a friend but Mika said I should do it too."

She was accepted and after just six weeks of formal dance training went to Edinburgh with the Mika Haka group.

She graduated from AUT in 2003 with a Maori contemporary dance certificate, and from Unitec, with a contemporary dance degree, in 2007.

Her physicality and prowess on stage have already led to invitations to work with some legendary artists and companies: Black Grace as well as Atamira, in Kirk Torrance's Flintlock Musket, with the new Christchurch company Southern Lights in a project with established choreographer Shona McCullagh, Seattle-based international choreographer Zoe Schofield and emerging choreographer Fleur de Their.

Next month she attends an indigenous choreographic workshop for Pasifika people in Broome, Australia. In May she will be involved in workshopping a new work with Douglas Wright. "I am pretty intense and ambitious," she says.

As well as Wijohn and Thomas' new works, Hou will include excerpts from Patterson's Whakairo and Maaka Pene's Memoirs of Active Service.

Performances at 3pm today and 5pm tomorrow will be followed by question-and-answer sessions with the choreographers and panel discussions on the latest thinking in Maori creativity and contemporary arts practice.

Moana Nepia leads the discussions, with guests including Selwyn Muru, Dr Huhana Smith and Louise Potiki Bryant.

Performance

What: Hou, with the Atamira Dance Collective

Where and when: MauForum, Corban Estate Arts Centre, today, 3pm; tomorrow 5pm, each followed by an Atamira-led symposium on Maori creativity.