Black Grace flying high

Black Grace's tour of new works doesn't exclude some old favourites, writes BERNADETTE RAE.

Black Grace have their own interpretation of "new", as in their tour, Best of New Works. Some pieces presented this season were made as early as 1996. Not one piece has been created since the "new works" outing in 2000.

"New works," explains artistic director Neil Ieremia, "is the name of a special Black Grace project that fosters the work of new choreographers within the company and that allows the company to try new things."

But Black Grace fans will not be sorry to see some old favourites again: Mala Tevita's fast-paced homage to break-dancing cool, Ieremia's Minoi, fusing traditional Samoan slap dance with contemporary movement, Tai Royal's svelte and witty Understand the Circumstance and Simon Fa'amoe's hilarious insights into supermarkets, 12 Items or Less.

And none of the works has been taken previously to Wellington, where there were sell-out shows over two weeks at the beginning of October and rapturous responses in Porirua, Ieremia's old home town.

"The new work's shows are always popular because they are really accessible and the guys come out and talk," says Ieremia. "In Porirua we had sell-out audiences and a lot of those were people who missed out in Wellington. We had heaps and heaps of people who came because of family networks and local community networks. I think they were surprised."

But while old "new works" are being performed for new audiences, being given new twists by new dancers and endlessly revealing new nuances, there is plenty of change afoot for Black Grace, too.

The company now has a new financial footing, with annual funding from next year assured by Creative New Zealand. A newly formed Black Grace Trust, with an expert board, will "take us into the next phase".

Artistically, Ieremia is on the move and 2002 will bring a new direction. Douglas Wright, Daniel Belton and Tai Royal will each make new - as in mint - 25-minute pieces on the company, for a Black Grace and Friends season.

Ieremia is looking forward to dancing again, with someone else temporarily at the choreographic helm.

Health problems resulting from a bout of rheumatic fever in his youth began to take their toll on Ieremia from 1997. A leaking aortic valve cost him his fitness, saw his weight balloon to over 100kg and caused his heart to enlarge dangerously. He had open-heart surgery at the end of 1999, a fact that was kept quiet because he wanted "to be judged for my work, not for my health".

He danced in the Our Back Yard season last year against medical advice and only because the company lost a dancer suddenly.

"But my heart is back to its normal size and I am well on the road back to fitness," he says. "And I am really looking forward to working with Douglas - he is a great mentor of mine.

"From an artistic director's point of view, I am stoked that the company will have these opportunities to learn from other choreographers' ways of working - to learn as many different dance languages as possible."

Ieremia is also already developing a new piece of his own, to be shown in 2003. Its working title is The Turning World and it was inspired by his trip to Samoa last year.

"I went originally to learn about fire dance," he says. "Instead I walked into a huge battle over intellectual property and who actually owns and who should use the traditional art forms and movements.

"It totally blew me away. It was pretty awful. They were going for me in quite a big way"

The experience opened up a lot of soul-searching for Ieremia, of the "who am I?" and "where do I come from?" kind.

"It has been a really freeing experience," he says. "Previously, I never really embraced today's living culture, my own roots in Porirua's Cannons Creek. But now I have finally discovered I am a product of my parents and their secondhand Samoan culture. Also a huge amount of other influences - the media, TV - makes me a product of the whole world.

"So I have given up trying to be just a good Samoan boy. I haven't made anything with an exclusively Samoan flavour since Minoi in 1999. The whole world is turning, though. And it's amazing."

* Black Grace play Whangarei November 7-10, and the Herald Theatre in Auckland November 13-24.