Auckland Arts Festival review: iTMOi

iTMOi was created to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Photo / Jean-Louis Fernandez

Auckland Arts Festival
What: iTMOi (in the mind of igor)
Where and when: Aotea Centre, to March 21

A tormented shriek, a sudden drop into darkness and a tall figure in robes emerges from the shadows, ranting. "God said .th.th. Only Son .th.th. God has spoken to Abraham .th.th. " His words morph into rap-like chant, morph into rock concert frenzy, loud, terrifying, while taut and terrific bodies stamp, jump, twist, possessed by this thundering music. Stage smoke writhes all around.

Consummate choreographer Akram Khan and his company created this Rite of Spring to celebrate the 100th anniversary, in 2013, of Igor Stravinsky's iconoclastic original. It may not be shaking the art world to the same extent, but iTMOi is still a work of stomach-churning power, magnificent movement and deep delving into the nightmarish machinations of life and death and primal love, pinpointed in human consciousness by the act of sacrifice.

Khan sweeps a broad and dramatic canvas.

The opening maelstrom is superficially tamed by the entrance of a white queen in a hooped skirt of beehive proportions and a headpiece to rival the fashions of Ascot. The dancers now move in exaggerated polka steps, almost courtly, signalling their social compliance by mirroring her chest-high salute.

There is a challenging outsider, a white child, love and lust bloom, then comes the choosing. The dance to the death here belongs not just to the maiden but to the force of all life which Khan presents in brilliantly evocative and rivetingly performed rituals: strange, comic, heart-rending, and summoned forth by the cuckoo's call from the natural world.

The grand sacrifice also takes its form from nature, with a furry-bodied, brown dragonfly, its stage-wide, red-veined, glistening wings bound and tormented by shadowy, human-shaped forces. A mythical, horned creature parades, half man, half beast.

No more than 30 seconds in total of Stravinsky's original score are to be heard. Three composers - Nitkin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost - contribute their talents to this new and dramatic version, as varied as the dance styles - Kathak, Russian folk, hip-hop, flamenco and even Butoh - that it supports. Lighting and costumes are all superb, putting a fine professional patina to the creative genius, talent, intellect and energy of Khan's company, in a truly outstanding and unforgettable performance.