Reviews of Whakairo
TEMPO '07 Dance Festival
Whakairo
The Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall, The Edge
28 September - 1 October 2007
Reviewed by Bernadette Rae for NZ Herald
Atamira's mix of technique and emotion is stunning.
The opening soliloquy - rounded vowels, rolling eyes in the beseeching, upturned, bewhiskered face of Tamati Patuwai - is of Shakespearian dimension. But the tragedy that follows is pure Once Were Warriors.
ATAMIRA Dance Company's new work, choreographed by Moss Patterson, quickly dispenses with sonorous sounds and enters the crudest vernacular - literally. The spoken word, primarily as violent and vulgar interjection, powerfully peppers the proceedings.
The action takes place beneath a marvellous representation of a Maori whare, stripped to its barbed-wire beams and hanging, separated from the earth.
Whakairo's choreography is inspired by the lines and patterns of the traditional carving for which it is named; its subject matter by the recent deaths of Maori babies at the hands of their whanau.
Heavy, bro.
But Patterson and his seven dancer/collaborators give the unpleasantly familiar statistics and arguments, accusations and excuses, the immediacy of a heartbeat, the bitterness of fresh bile.
The violence is far from gratuitous, if a trifle too long in the middle section. We quickly got the point.
There was tremendous art in the opening movements, as figures entwined and realigned, in close, as in touching, formations, reminiscent of the totem pole and the strength and cohesion of a complete culture.
As that connectedness and cohesion disintegrated we were led into the ugliness of what is not exclusively - as those interjections also reminded us - but is significantly, a Maori problem.
Kelly Nash and Peter Takapuna play pivotal, parental roles with powerful honesty. Gaby Thomas and Jack Gray evoke the innocence of childhood.
Maaka Pepene and the stunning Louise Potiki Bryant add their own drama and the aforementioned set (Brett Graham), sound score (Paddy Free) and lighting and costumes (Vanda Karolczak and Vicki Slow) complete a stunning collaboration of fine technique and unfettered and unpretentious emotion.
They may not present a solution, but finish with a final scene of some retribution for the offender and a slow rolling hope of coming together again, somehow, some time.
Whakairo: Sensitve and Devastating
Reviewed by Felicity Molloy for Thetareview, 29 Sep 2007
With typical attention to etiquette, Atamira placed their guest artist in residence, Richard Digoue's new work first. Symbole et Realite is new and resonates a different aesthetic throughout. A beautiful middle movement section with less familiar motifs seemed to draw out the dancers; more so than the cultural symbolism aspects. I am not easy with technology split against the vista of the dancer's human body, but in this case, exquisite views of forest and light were gentle reminders of less mobile physicalities. Symbole et Realite provides early dance conversations, prerequisite to engaging a deeper more continuous exposure to artists at work across the globe. Particularly sensitive dance work by Dolina Wehipeihana and Cathy Livermore.
Atamira is a group designed to dance. They move well, technically bound by current styles but reaching out of them into the vast vocabulary of their inherited world. This makes for disjointed viewing and results in a surfaced interest about messages, which are at once political, social and artistic. In this way Jack Grey, Maaka Pepene build on their distinctive strengths as performers.
Paddy Free's music lets them go.
The devastating response-ability of Māori people towards the recent deaths of babies at the hands of their parents is in no way an easy story. Atamira are brave. Moss Patterson, their choreographer is brave. Peter Takapuna is brave, to dance out the role of a murdering father, his breaks for fluid between sets a poignant reminder that he is just a dancer ... Gaby Thomas and Kelly Nash wildly fulfilling the female counterparts and Lou Potiki Bryant (as always?) drawing herself out of the darkest moments to move like a serene angel.
Maybe there was too much language in this one? Tamati Patuwai is a compelling presence, graceful to move with the others but his choice of text seemed scrambled. Fewer words maybe, to mean more in this case.
Atamira - we have stepped on this Festival platform with you, alongside you, as with this awful happening. Maybe it won't make it go away, but maybe it will.
Whakairo (excerpt)
Reviewed by Sue Cheesman for Danz Quarterly
A very different piece, "Whakairo", choreographed by Moss Patterson for ATAMIRA Dance Company, was not afraid to make a strong statement around family violence, striking a chord at the heart of humanity. The dance takes place beneath a beautiful but barbed steel whare that glistens in the light and witnesses the turmoil below. Moss uses much of the movement material seen before in his abstract works on kowhaiwhai patterns but this time for more concrete and narrative purposes. It is impossible to sustain the emotional fever pitch and maybe less is more as the balance and harmony are lost and the ensuing chaos dominates. I particularly noticed that Moss managed to interweave the dance and spoken word throughout the piece with one feeding the other. The performers were strong with each digging deep and delivering the story with commitment and passion, finally pointing towards a glimmer of hope.
