Reviews of 3 Short Works

Reviews of Atamira - Three Short Works

Maori Dance Celebrated
Reviewed by Jennifer Shennan for the Dominon Post (Wellington, New Zealand)

Atamira Collective, founded by Jack Gray in 2000, is a platform for emerging Maori choreographers to develop contemporary dance with themes and references drawn from their cultural heritage.

This programme of three contrasting works is impeccably produced and the performers' commitment is total, yet contained, thoughtful, and thought provoking. The opening powhiri and korero from Moss Patterson sets a dignified atmosphere of welcome and respect.

Whare tangata, choreographed by Louise Potiki Bryant, incorporates film imagery which contributes to the theme of mana wahine. Three generations of women are present; each wears a long black dress with handsome head ornament of black feathers. Three movable frames are used in a variety of ways to mark individual identity and to suggest layers of mysterious but powerful processes by which an ancestor may be spiritually present in some way in a descendant.

The eventual unveiling of a miniature book, an illuminated portrait, is a master stroke and resonates the power of photographic images in Maori cultural thinking.

The dancers – Bryant, Dolina Wehipeihana and Justine Hohaia – move with admirable control and a dazzling flash of wiri to put the seal on their kaupapa. The design team all deserve to share in the praise for this inspired concept.

Te Paki by Patterson is a joyful celebration to music by Whirimako Black, of the kowhaiwhai patterns painted on to the rafters of whare nui throughout the country. This functions as a kind of dance notation for Patterson (and why not?) as he curves and pulls and tucks and throws and turns and returns the dancers (Wehipeihana, Hohaia and Travis Khan) into a seamless play of movement in and out of the light.

The work is dedicated to New Zealand choreographer Daniel Belton and does indeed share some of the quality of dynamic flow in his own work.

It is the central piece, Hail (In your wake), choreographed by Gray as a grief marker for his father’s death that will prove indelible.

A duet by Cathy Livermore and Wehipeihana, it opens with the waves and foam of sea and tide, and the things that get pulled through currents and undertows, thence to a journey through the landscape in which the female form as sculpture and as movement evokes every kind of land shape there is; Papatuanuku, from plain to hill to ridge to slope to rock and outcrop, riverbank. Then breaks the storm, all wild and fury, with the extremes of nature’s power demanding to be obeyed.

The pull toward Cape Reinga is inexorable and into that swift vortex goes the departing spirit.

I don’t known how to count people or nations, or how many of one make the other. But I do know a powerful and poetic choreographed lament when I see one. And the need to move grief is a cultural universal.

The programme, ahakoa iti, he pounamu, may be small but it is made of greenstone. I would personally dispense with the little snippets of ‘music’ between the items and weave more of the word, or te reo, into this choreographic mix.

Dance ya socks off at the Fringe Fest , Tuesday 2 March 2004 – Capital Times
reviewed by Deirdre Tarrant

Atamira introduces itself as a dance collective formed as a platform for emerging Maori contemporary dancers and choreographers and in their first offering here in Wellington they showed three works.

Whare Tangata (2001) by Louise Potiki Bryant to music by Eden Mulholland was evocative and strongly danced by Dolina Wehipeihana, Justine Hohaia and Louise herself. Set in the nineteenth century with photographs used as part of the design and stark white manipulated frames controlled by the dancers, the movement vocabulary used was sparse and tense.

Hail (2003) by Jack Gray to music by Paddy Free exploded into the space and played beautifully with both the positive energies of memory and the negative realities of mourning as two gauze clad dancers (Wehipeihana and Cathy Livermore) tormented the space and stunningly vanished into the vortex of the unknown that awaits us all.

Moss Patterson introduced the evening and his new work Te Paki continues his fascination with the kowhaiwhai designs as a starter for his choreographic expression. This was a trio and the fluidity and flow of his curving, restless combinations formed a relentless but beautiful journey for the eye of the audience and the energies of the dancers.

Atamira reviewed by Jyoti for Scoop Star rating 5 - exquisite

Atamira is an awe-inspiring collective whose three pieces Whare tangata, Hail and Te Paki left me breathless at the edge of my seat.

Whare tangata held the audience captive in an environment that pushed the weight and strength of what is known into the whirling emotion of what is new and may or may not be held. The ingenious use of a white steel box frame that disassembled, created myriads of spaces, portals and containers of the simple black stage.

The gravity of mana wahine rose like a challenge from the dancers (Dolina Wehipeihana, Justine Hohaia and Louise Potiki Bryant) who seemed to embody a temporal or perhaps generational tension as they danced both together and against one another.

From this very physical and spatially located wor, Hail (in your wake) lifted gently into the spirit realms where Dolina Wehipeihana and Cathy Livermore demonstrated their strength and grace in this aerobatic exploration. White constumes that partially obscured the form of the dancer’s bodies in conjunction with bright white lighting made this intensely demanding piece seem ethereal right to its explosive finale.

In contrast, Moss Patterson’s Te Paki was a liquid and sensual interplay of rhythmic flow that soothed the audience in a lush flow of beauty. Whirimako Black’s voice created a velvet sub-marine lounge in which the three dancers (Justine Hohaia, Dolina Wehipehana and Travis Khan) surged an oceanic syncopation. Travis Khan’s solo spun his joy throughout the theatre while the gradual fade of the music left the rhythm of the dancers’ breath in my body.