Performance: The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with the Black Grace Dance Company

Otara Leisure Centre
Review: Bernadette Rae


In the Maidment Studio Theatre or on the tiny stage of the Spiegletent, the places we last saw them perform, the Black Grace boys have always looked robust, substantial lads.

As they run from a side door into the open space in the middle of the Otara Leisure Centre, with little lighting fanfare and the seated NZSO as their backdrop, they look suddenly vulnerable and small. And that big varnished floor sounds hard and unforgiving beneath their feet.

But conductor Marc Decio Taddei has already introduced them in glowing terms and explained to the audience, presumed to be less familiar than most with symphony orchestras and contemporary dance, that their first piece, Method, is a visual interpretation of the music.

Then the first bars of Bach's third Brandenburg Concerto sweep around the auditorium and Black Grace are moving and weaving, springing and rolling their bodies through rhythm and space and no further explanations are necessary.

Method, a gorgeous and complex choreography with contact improvisation techniques at its core, showcases the company perfectly as an ensemble and with solo spots for everyone.

The boys, far from looking small, are now looking superb. There is a new depth to their dancing, a polish and a cohesion that reflects their newfound status as a full-time company over the past 12 months.

The second new piece, commissioned by the NZSO for this hometown tour of Otara and Porirua, is a hilarious hoedown, from Copland's ballet music Rodeo. It is fast and furious and the audience erupts at the horsey humour.

In between come A Small Glimpse, with Taiaroa Royal and Sam Fuataga strutting their disco cool, Minoi Minoi, based on traditional Samoan rhythms and song, and Deep Far, choreographer Neil Ieremia's wonderful "weather" piece.

The NZSO's contribution emphasises music for dance: from Kachaturian's Sabre Dance, Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers and more of Copland's Rodeo to a classic post-modern piece, John Adams' The Chairman Dances: Foxtrot for Orchestra and Michael Torke's minimalist Javelin.

But it is from Black Grace that the audience wants more and they deliver the encore as only they can.

It is magnificent, haka-like but in Samoan and Maori simultaneously, robust and rousing as you like. And it shakes that big, old Otara Leisure Centre to the core.