OUT OF THE BLACK: With live electric guitar by former Straitjacket Fits frontman Shayne Carter and James Webster on Maori instruments and a transformative lighting design, Atamira Dance Company’s Pango (Blackness) promises to bring a multi-sensory experience to the War Memorial Theatre this month. Pictures supplied
Stripped to the waist, six male dancers explore Te Kore, the blackness of the void, in Atamira Dance Company’s raw performance, Pango.
Using themes of creation and nothingness, artistic director Moss Patterson explores the idea of pre-existence in his new work, Pango (Blackness). In that formless state of consciousness lies
potential for movement, energy and life.
Dancers, Luke Hanna, Jeremy Beck, Emmanuel Reynaud, Toa Paranihi, Jared Hemopo and Matiu Hamuera ignite the stage inside a black rope wharenui to explore their individual experience of Te Kore. Described as a multi-sensory meditation on existence, the dance performance includes live electric guitar by former Straitjacket Fits frontman Shayne Carter and traditional Maori instruments played by James Webster. Rowan Pierce’s projection design casts light and imagery onto the dancers’ bodies. Along with award-winning spatial and AV projection designers and six dancers, the audience is enveloped in a soundscape, coupled with reverberations of ancient karakia and chant.
A thick white mist, curling around the dancers’ bodies creates almost surreal silhouettes, writes reviewer Leah Maclean.
The lighting design can be harsh and confronting but the “searchlight” motif reminds the audience they are in the presence of dark things such as cannibalism and madness.
