Touch Compass at the Aotea Centre

By BERNADETTE RAE

Lighthouse, the gorgeous new work in this three-part programme from New Zealand's unique mixed ability dance company, speaks lyrically and deeply, of and to, New Zealand's soul.

There is a coastline, an emptiness, a sense of being at the edge, and members of a small community taking tender refuge in each other. The stage is set with a cluster of insubstantial forms that echo the shape of shells or sails. They are illuminated from behind and sometimes fly, adding to their sense of impermanence and fragility. A row of twinkling lights and a shallow stream crosses the front stage. The accompanying music, uncredited, is divine.

A cast of 10 dancers inhabit this world of sea and sand, idyllic in one mood, quietly dangerous in the next, and fill it to overflowing. A duet performed by choreographer and company founder Catherine Chappell and Jesse Steele is breath-stopping. Bronwyn Hayward becomes archangel, partnered by Matt Gibbons. Dolina Wehipeihana gives the company a wry, aural voice, in dialogue with actor/dancer Rob Mokaraka. Chappell's choreography and the vision of director Christian Penny are superb.

The ensemble is greater than the sum of its many splendid parts. It is both real and surreal, transcendent, spell-binding.

Touch Compass and contact improvisation are almost synonymous and the opening piece, Flying Impro, is a spirited and beautiful explosion of movement, aided by flying trusses and wheels, as in wheelchairs, bicycles, tricycles and skates.

Lusi's Eden, starring Lusi Faioa, was first performed in Auckland in last year's Dance Festival, but is just as spectacular and touching on a second viewing.

Comedian Philip Patston, who MCs the programme, pokes the borax at everything, from being disabled, being gay, and being Catherine Chappell to dance auditions and falling over.

Even the opening night-curtain call is an event - less standing ovation, though there was one, than a heartfelt celebration of the dancing human body in all its wonderful diversity.