Described as a "poetic ode to our troubled world", the latest production from acclaimed New Zealand dance company Black Grace is nonetheless a punishing physical challenge for the 10 dancers involved.
Artistic director Neil Ieremia’s full-length work, set to music by Antonio Vivaldi, is fuelled by the refugee crisis, Donald Trump’s rise to power and the divide between rich and poor among other concerns, although Black Grace’s response is to provide an antidote, a glimmer of light in the darkness.
"Neil wanted us to think about what’s going on in the world, but he didn’t necessarily want to convey that," dancer Sean MacDonald explained as the company prepares for a national tour that includes a show at the Regent Theatre, Dunedin, on Friday.
"It is more about doing the opposite — providing a gift of beauty, trying to put something out there that will get people thinking, perhaps giving people hope."
On the phone from Auckland having just completed another day of rehearsals, MacDonald says a large part of Black Grace’s approach has to do with sheer physicality. And As Night Falls is no exception.
"There is definitely some highly athletic training, but there is a gentleness within As Night Falls. It ebbs and flows. It punches, then pulls back and lets the audience contemplate what they just witnessed as a new scene takes shape.
"Originally, we did a season last November in Auckland so for the three months before that we were rehearsing it and making it. We went to United States earlier this year and performed a smaller version of it, along with some other works. In the six weeks since we’ve returned, we’ve just been working on As Night Falls."
In a review in November, The New Zealand Herald described As Night Falls as ‘‘a dynamically driven collage of tension and strife with anxious, restless, fleeting and flurrying people constantly on the move".
"They await their fate at the hands of invisible captors; are tossed by explosions; are swept off their feet by huge waves; and trudge from one side of the space to the other ... Dressed in loose layers and shades of grey while surrounded by shadows which shield their faces, they could be ghosts or the tattered remnants of a village, refugees from calamity.
"But when the bright lights shine down, their sculptural muscularity is revealed and their ability to flow through demanding, intricate, detailed passages of movement at a punishingly fast pace reveals they are highly trained dancers."
MacDonald says the company has since added other elements to the work, which he describes as a big, physical show.
"We are constantly making tweaks. We have tried to add more to it, but it is also about trying to do what’s best for your body."
"You can’t do the same things day in and day out — you’ll get bored and your body will get tired. So we push it, then rest, push a bit more, then rest, then get it to a point where we are peaking as we put it back on stage.
"We are trying to tell a story, so each of us has his own journey to explore.
"As Night Falls provides the chance to be like a man on the street, a person who goes to work in a factory 14 hours a day just to feed his family ... it’s about trying to relate to someone who has had to pack up and leave his home to make a life somewhere else."
MacDonald (Ngati Kahungunu, Ngati Raukawa) performed with Black Grace in its inaugural season in 1995, and has worked with the company on and off since. Now 44, he started dancing at the age of 18, training at the Auckland Performing Arts School and the New Zealand School of Dance. He has worked with New Zealand’s leading choreographers and dance companies, performing extensively nationally and internationally.
Highlights of his career with Black Grace include performances in Relentless, Surface and Gathering Clouds, and various international tours to North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
"There is a lot of thinking behind the training and rehearsing.
"Obviously, we can’t taper off too much before a performance because we need our bodies to be at a certain point ... it is about working on a trajectory towards that performance," MacDonald says.
"Our day starts at 9am, but most people get here an hour earlier to warm up and do their own routines We work until 6pm five days a week."
Black Grace
• Founded by Neil Ieremia in 1995, Black Grace continues to draw inspiration from his Samoan and New Zealand roots to create innovative dance works that reach across social, cultural and generational barriers.
• Ieremia has earned widespread recognition for his legacy of work, winning Creative New Zealand’s Senior Pacific Artist Award and named an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit.
• Black Grace has toured throughout North America, playing to audiences of thousands and making its mark at prestigious venues and festivals such as The Kennedy Centre in Washington, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts and on New York’s 42nd Street. The company has also toured Europe, Japan, Australia, New Caledonia, Guam, South Korea and Mexico.
• Following its national tour Black Grace will create a new full-length work, Crying Men.
See it
• Black Grace performs As Night Falls at the Regent Theatre, Dunedin, on Friday, June 30.
