What: The Kiss Inside, by Douglas Wright
Where: Sky City Theatre, April 16-17
Reviewer: Bernadette Rae
While punters in the casino below pursued the elusive ecstasy of winning against all odds, Douglas Wright flashed a theatrical trump card upstairs in the premiere of his new dance theatre work, performing a solo unannounced, unexpected and riveting and reminding us of what a galactic talent he has been from the beginning: intense as dark matter, wild and bright as an exploding sun.
He is orbited now by a company of superb dancers. Sarah-Jayne Howard, Craig Bary, Luke Hanna, Simone Lapka and Tara Jade Samaya embody Wright's aesthetic to fiery perfection.
The Kiss Inside, an exposition on the primal search for ecstasy, finds him in a new frame of mind though, with an underlying wryness to his observations, anger mitigated, the passion wiser.
An inverted tree dresses the stage. In the opening scene Hanna is also suspended upside down to deliver, in fine voice, ancient and beautiful karakia and waita. This unification of the Tarot's imagery and Maori wisdom is not the only cross-cultural reference.