KEY POINTS:
Valentine's Day cynics might forgo the obligatory chocolates and red roses this year and celebrate the true nature of relationships with Clare Luiten instead.
Her new contemporary dance work, Women and Honour - Notes on Lying, which promises to strip love bare of shiny tinfoil and cellophane lies,
and get closer to the heart of the matter, previews on Valentine's Day, February 14.
Inspired by American feminist Adrienne Rich's collection of essays and poetry of the same name, Luiten sidesteps some of Rich's more hardcore feminist dogma to take a flirtatious and dramatic approach to her examination of the way lies, conscious and subconscious affect our closest personal relationships.
Rich's work made a strong impression on the 30-something dancer, choreographer and Pilates studio owner. She was first inspired to create a solo piece that was well received in the Wellington Fringe Festival in 2007.
In this 2008 expanded version, Luiten is joined by dancers Matt Gibbons (Touch Compass), Tallulah Holly-Massey (Late Night Choreographer) and Kerryn McMurdo (Artillery Productions).
"I have removed most of the text that was a feature of the solo work," she says. "The message is more subtle. And with a group of dancers we have been able to create different characters and show the dynamics of their relationships without needing the voiceover."
The work deals with a number of diverse and interesting ideas: the use of make-up as a lie, which encourages women living in a patriarchy to learn to manipulate men to get their own way; lying to fulfil the other person's agenda; the necessity of lying for social survival - think of the Jewish person living in Nazi Germany; and the lies we tell ourselves.
Glamorous costuming is a feature of the work. The look, says Luiten, is stylised with a 30s feel, "quite sexy, sparkly, spirited" - and with Gibbons at one point in all the sartorial splendour of the classic Kiwi male.
Luiten complains that much contemporary dance has been desexualised, with men and women frequently clad in androgynous unitards.
Music is by Charlotte Rose and lighting by Sean Curham.
Luiten grew up in Kaitaia, before training at the New Zealand School of Dance and later graduating from the London Contemporary Dance School, working as a freelance dancer and training in Pilates during a 7 1/2 year stint in Europe.
Since her return to New Zealand about four years ago, she has made several short works, notably Sugar Pile Swing, that showed at the Wine Cellar, and a dance film, Woven, that played at the 2005 New Zealand Film Festival and the Greek Film Festival.
PERFORMANCE
* What: Women and Honour - Notes on Lying.
* Where and when: Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall, Feb 14-17.
