Reviews of TAONGA: Dust, Water, Wind
Rona (Pare Randall) is positioned centre stage, alone. Her face - light and young - pierces through the vast and empty darkness. She dances in duet with her spirit (Dolina Wehipeihana) to the sound of grating stones (Richard Nunns).
A family is sitting at dinner. They enter into a theatrical, almost mimetic meal, which is then broken up by a cleverly crafted collapse of the table they are sitting around.
The dancers are scattered across the stage, sparse. Bits of table. Chairs. A tree. The glittery fantail (Jack Gray) enunciates cheekiness and charm through his body. Emma (Nancy Wijohn) and Henare (Moss Paterson) dance in duet. They find Tom (Taiaroa Royal) limp on the ground...
A theatrical duet between Rona and the fantail, a sunset scape behind the slow walk of Emma. Suggestions of presence, the sound of a deep flute, dreamlike, subconscious, romantic.
We see a large gourd being played, a deep resonant sound tipped by rattling fingers. The group dances in unison with their own taonga puoro under three huge hanging 'pods' constructed out of bamboo.
A percussive haka in circle formation spliced with repeating gestural movement leads into a trio performed by the men, then a nurturing contact dance between Emma and the two Ronas.
The women spear and pull in the men with their mana wahine, the men are like fish in front of the moonlight. The gong-like sound haunts... And then the women are hanging huge white sheets to a clothes line...
Tom and Henare duet with conviction, another group dance of flowing movement, and the sheets are hoisted up to become the screen upon which a lighthouse is projected. Emma enters through the sheets, and then the group.
A long group dance finishes the piece, flowing movement clothed in white. A projection of the storyteller, Rona Williamson, brings us back from the wind.
This piece gets me thinking about cultural romanticism and exoticism, and the ways in which Te Ao Māori is portrayed to a wider audience.
Louise Potiki Bryant's recent works have all reflected on her Ngai Tahu heritage and in particular, the Potiki whanau. This time she is inspired by the memories of her aunt, Rona, now 82 and still living in Southland's Kaka Point.
Her image, a laughing face, a lined and lovely kuia's face, is shown briefly, at the end of the performance.
Video images, another signature of Potiki-Bryant's style, and the sparse but gorgeously effective stage "props" - burnished copper vessels, a mythologically significant tree and three suspended shapes suggesting the kelp bags used for preserving muttonbirds, and against which moving images of water are reflected, are highly evocative.
Richard Nunn's live music is fascinating, at first, for its use of traditional Maori instruments - stones, sticks and gourds for shaking, tapping and blowing. Nunns sits on stage throughout. But what is at first enchanting, especially with dancers Jack Gray and Moss Patterson dancing Piwaiwaka (fantail) and Ruru (owl) to its tune, soon becomes an unrelenting and repetititive accompaniment, even embellished with additional soundscape by Paddy Free.
Potiki Bryant describes the three sections, Dust, Water and Wind as "poems."
Dark poems, they are, reflecting perhaps the Great Depression of Aunty Rona's youth. But the shadowy stage, the monotoned costumes, a craggy video image of a gray rock face from which figures magically evolve and dissolve, takes its toll. The beautifully billowing white sheets in the last verse, and the projected image of a light house on a hill with some blue sky, is a dramatic relief. In this final section the movements of the dancers also evolve and open from their initially ritualised and repeated beginnings. Nancy Wijohn makes for a powerful Emma Potiki, Taiaroa Royal looks suitably elderly as Tom Potiki.
The work is not narrative - but is based on family characters. They emerge - darkly - like the faded faces from an old photograph album. The choreographer is obviously familiar with their stories but a lot of the action remains far from clear to the outsider. We remain outsiders.
The presence of two little Ronas, (Para Randall and Dolina Wehipeihana) in identical dresses, reflecting the entwined stories of Aunty Rona and the Rona of Maori myth could also be better, more separately, defined.
