Stunning collection of dance from young performers

By BERNADETTE RAE

Freshly Minted, Auckland Anglican Maori Mission - The Atamira Dance Collective, an emerging force in the Maori contemporary dance scene, consists of five young performers, urban-based and Unitec-trained. Three of them have choreographed the works in this, their first major showing.

Pick of the crop is Whare tangata, Lou Bryant's stunning study of the roles of women in both Maori and Christian creation myths, and the influence of colonisation on Maori women.

Three dancers - Dolina Wehipeihana, Justine Hohaia and Bryant herself - are costumed in Victorian black, with dramatic feathers piercing their hair.

Three frame-like structures are variously interlocked, separated, and lined up to provide perspective, and spun around themselves by the dancers, reminiscent of both pois and the gyrations of computer screensavers. The clever concept is performed with spirit and heart.

Under Covers and The Horse and the Hinaaki, choreographed by Anna MacRae and Jackie Gray respectively, look with lots of laughter and love at family backgrounds.

In MacRae's work her Pakeha grandmother is contrasted with Gray's Maori grandfather, but the bulk of the work consists of gymnastic tumblings and the experiment continues some way past a comfortable conclusion.

Gray's work is subtitled, "If Romeo and Juliet were born in Te Atatu in the 1970s, this is what their story would be ... "

A painter's scaffold stands in for Juliet's balcony and the Te Atatu Romeo initially ensnares his love in an eel trap, ritually placed over her head.

His crimplene flares and her plastic hair rollers add an iconic touch and the great love duet, full of post rock'n'roll and pre-disco passion and pathos, is almost unbearably sad.

The finale, Maori Kabuki Princess, also choreographed by Gray, is a totally bizarre and excruciatingly funny exploration of "kabuki, woodblock, kimono and karaoke," played to the hilt by Wehipeihana, Hohaia Bryant and Gray.

Atamira show great promise and real talent and have something special to say.