Spiritual homecoming for dance piece

When the Atamira Dance Company performs Taonga: dust, water, wind at the Otago Festival of the Arts next month it will be the spiritual homecoming of this poetic dance work, and a very exciting occasion for Ngai Tahu kuia Rona Potiki (84), who will travel with a large whanau contingent from the Catlins to see the remounting of the dance performance that has been inspired by her early life at Kaka Point.

Dunedin-born and bred choreographer-and-dancer Louise Potiki Bryant was so moved by the vivid childhood memories her Aunty Rona has recorded in her memoirs that she became committed to enshrining them in a dance narrative.

Atamira, an urban-based pan-tribal dance company, was established 10 years ago when four Maori dancers and choreographers thought it would be a great idea to explore their maoritanga through dance.

They wanted to express themselves without doing kapa haka or traditional Maori hand movements.

The inspiration for their dance works has often been drawn from family histories.

"My aim is to keep certain stories alive, particularly Ngai Tahu stories and for me the stories of women, as they often don't get heard," Louise says.

"My father's side of the family lived at Kaka Point so it has always been a special place for me in terms of whakapapa, but I really only got to know Rona in the past few years.

She was given as a baby to the maiden Great-aunt Emma Potiki to raise and she grew up and has spent all of her life in the Catlins.

"It was when I was speaking with Rona about helping her to record her whakapapa that I began to question just what are the taonga, the treasures, in our lives. I realised that sometimes some of our most special memories can come from some of the everyday moments of life. For Rona, as a young girl, she had a special relationship with Emma, an older woman of mature years.

"Taonga, dust, water, wind is told through the eyes of Rona as an 8-year-old. Kids have wonderful imaginations and I liked the idea that for this work a magical and mythological story could be created through her imagination, but based on her real-life childhood stories."

The entire cast visited Kaka Point earlier this year and video shot there is used in the production.

In Taonga: dust, water, wind, the video world is mixed with the real world and, together with the lighting and the choreography, helps evoke the magic of the tale.

This is added to by mystical costumes with strong themes of the sea, including kelp and feathers.

Hybrid suits, part man, part bird, also feature.

Taonga puoro, traditional Maori musical instruments such as hue (made from gourds), whalebone, pounamu and stone provide a haunting soundscape composed and performed live by Richard Nunns, the acknowledged authority on taonga puoro.

The work is in three parts; dust, water and wind.

Dust is based on Greataunt Emma's intuition, how she knew things without being told; reading the behaviour of fantails and the hooting of owls to foretell the death of a brother, long before the news officially came.

Water deals with rituals and memories to do with the river and the sea at Kaka Point.

It explores everyday life there during the Depression: fishing, floundering, mutton-birding and Rona's involvement in the preparation of poha, kelp bags for preserving mutton birds.

Koauau and other wind instruments are used in wind.

Louise says this section allows for a more abstract dance expression.

It draws from Rona's memories of how the wind would shake the old Potiki house of her childhood so badly the family would flee to a tent in a more sheltered position, and also of Rona's belief in the healing properties of the east wind.

Through the narrative Louise has also interwoven her aunt's childhood with elements of the traditional Maori story in which a woman is captured by the moon.

Louise, who dances the role of the woman in the moon, says Emma did everything by the moon, mutton-birding, planting; the moon guided so many aspects of her life.

Louise says of Taonga: dust, water, wind: "I have tried to capture some of the beauty that Rona reflects on when she talks about some of the beautiful magic moments that she remembers. Life was hard in the Depression but with Taonga: dust, water, wind I am thinking about how people cope with change, the universality of these situations and the meeting points of culture."

While Rona did see the first outing of Taonga in its Auckland season last year, this time in the company of her whanau she will share with them the premiere of the remounting of the work, enriched with the Kaka Point video, further choreographical development and enhanced clarity of narrative.

See it

Taonga: dust, water, wind will be performed on October 15 and 16 at the Kings and Queens Performing Arts Centre, at 8pm.