Dance review: The Rebel Pink

What a wonderfully energising show The Rebel Pink was!

In Auckland for just two nights, a shocking pink dance floor enriched by Marcus Shane's pink lighting gave a rosy glow to audience seated on three sides while live music by drummer Tom Scrase kept the senses heightened.

Great dancing by all five Footnote dancers added lustre to a triple bill of fresh new dance works.

Holly Newsome's trio Sweet Salt started simply and built to a climax with dancers (Adam Naughton, Tyler Carney and Georgia Beechey-Gradwell) making a million unpredictable movements while their faces rapidly morphed through an astonishing array of expressions.

Not All Who Launder Are Washed, by Eliza Sanders, brought all five Footnote dancers on. Four dancers spoke words and phrases while capering, moving in vigorous, frenzied bursts and taking up strangely contorted positions.

The fifth (Anu Khapung) made her way slowly across the floor diagonally, silently screaming as she went.

While there was plenty of contrast and some intriguing juxtapositions, nothing really developed and the ending was anticlimactic despite the intensity of performance.

Nancy Wijohn's The Silent Partner, a sensitively nuanced duet of negotiated intimacy, showed the space between dancers is as important as the closeness they can achieve.

The movement exchanges between Joshua Faleatua and Anu Khapung were buffeted by quickly changing emotions which flickered and flared.

The dancers circled warily and kept their distance, grappling and embracing.

When the final moments brought them to rest, lying side by side, heartfelt relief seemed to be shared by the enthusiastic audience.

What: The Rebel Pink by Footnote NZ Dance
Where: Loft, Q Theatre Loft
Reviewed by: Raewyn Whyte