Tumutumu with Louise Potiki Bryant.
The haunting voices of rock and wood, shell and pounamu, the "tumutumu" of Louise Potiki Bryant's solo work, and played live by Richard Nunns, blend evocatively with Paddy Free's soundtrack. That sound and beautiful visual projections also blend with the dance, achieving a rare and articulate harmony.
So Tumutumu moves
elegantly, hypnotically against an egg-shaped screen reflecting images, most arrestingly of a gorgeous woman's face emerging from a river's green water, and of Potiki Bryant herself, lizard-like, flicking long, lean limbs around and across a river boulder.
In real time, the dance is fluid, complex and transcendent. We recognise birth and death at either end of the creation story, but miss a middle. Programme notes give a title to nine specific phases of the work. In practice they mostly blend seamlessly and rather mystifyingly together. A little more illumination, both cerebral and in the stage's lighting, might address the resulting sense of detachment.
In contrast the Tempo 2013 version of Y Chromozone is fast, direct, a full-on festival of its own.
Stunning solos include Tynan Wood's embodiment of Sheila Chandra's Speaking in Tongues, Aaron Burr's meditation with a Chinese swinging pole, Luke Hanna's virtuosic Eye, and Christopher Olwage's Swan, which truly challenges perceptions of gender-appropriate beauty and wins.
