Passion and wordless bonds

Douglas Wright nearly gave up on his dance theatre work Inland. BERNADETTE RAE talks to him about what made him persevere.

Six torrid weeks of creation are at an end for Douglas Wright's new work, Inland. The brown paper has come down from the studio windows of Wellington's Te Whaea Dance and Drama School.

The week before the Wellington debut was spent "packing in" at a theatre in Palmerston North as the capital's venues were full of festival fare.

Wright is feeling good. "I would have given anything for another week - to play, to discard," he says. His method of working - to put out the question, to keep asking doggedly, and to play into an answer - does not sit easily in a set time frame.

Halfway through the allotted six weeks he nearly gave up. "I hated it so much." He even called a meeting of the company to warn them the play might not happen, and thanked them for their enthusiasm and patience.

Wright was in pain. "Somehow I managed to stay in the studio and not be too unkind. And we found it. Contrary to all my expectations the piece actually is finished."

There is a new softness about Wright, beyond mere relief, as he talks of Inland's themes and depths.

The piece was inspired, some three years ago, when he saw a televised dog trial. He was thinking then of a 40-minute work, to sit with two by Shona McCullagh and Michael Parmenter, at the premiere performance of their proposed new contemporary dance company.

When the dance company plans fell over Wright tried to abandon the Inland idea. "It was too difficult. I couldn't be bothered."

Wright is HIV positive, which compromises his lifestyle significantly. But the idea for Inland refused to go away. He suspects he is a "metaphysical magnet" for certain ideas and once one makes contact he simply cannot say no.

Images of that dog show continued to gel in his mind and a cast list evolved.

Inland features a shepherd - a spoken part for actor Peta Rutter - and a flock of sheep. "Human beings in New Zealand are often described as being sheep-like. Then there are those other allusions, to Christ and his flock, to Christ and the sacrificial lamb."

Wright suggests the dog - videoed and taking part via a mobile television screen - might be seen as symbolic of animal instinct, even passion, but under the command of its master.

He has more to say on the bond between man and dog - the typically masculine farmer with his tough, gruff and crippled exterior, whose brief, barked and singular words of affection for his four-legged partner speak of love. "And ultimately, of the woundedness of the male race."

Throughout Inland there are filmed and projected images of land and sky and a circling, wheeling hawk, wild and beautiful, a forever watchful predator which is death.

Inland, commissioned for the New Zealand Festival, features an original score by New Zealand-born, Toronto-based composer Juliet Palmer. Live music sections are performed on stage by violinist Deborah White. The pick-of-the-crop dancers are expats Craig Bary, Helaina Keeley and Sarah-Jayne Howard, who returned to New Zealand to perform with Wright, and Kilda Northcott, Kelly Nash, Alexa Wilson, Simon Ellis, Ryan Lowe and Sean McDonald.

* Inland, Aotea Centre, Friday and Saturday.