Friends in this season of new works are choreographer Louise Potiki Bryant, of Atamira Dance Collective, and dancers Liana Yew and Solomon Holly-Massey.
The extra dancers are sorely needed, as Black Grace's permanent ranks have shrunk to four: Sean MacDonald, Daniel Cooper, Tamihana Paurini and Abby Crowther.
Bryant's work, Night
Blooms, is the last item up in a triple bill full of variety and some great dancing. Her props alone are beautiful: a gleaming moon against which faces and images of the dance unfolding below are projected, and sculptured and woven flower shapes on long stems. Eerily evocative music is by Paddy Free.
The work explores the different spiritual perspective brought by night and the opening of Te Tatau o Po, the door to the night world. You can almost smell the distinctive scent of the queen of the night flower, hear the scuttling insect sounds, feel the beat of a heart alerted to another realm.
MacDonald's boisterous On the Off Chance is a quirky and bizarre collection of memories and experiences, exploding into consciousness with the aid of a huge pile of chairs which are tossed and biffed and fought over with enormous gusto and at speed by the full cast, two fluffy sheep, a singing doll and a horse.
The music is a collage of styles and numerous titles plus a live rendition by the sweet-faced MacDonald in sweet tones of Laugh, Kookaburra, Laugh and a disco rock number by Holly-Massey.
The surrealism seems a trifle forced but the energy and commitment of the dancers carries it through.
Daniel Cooper's Behind I's, which opens the programme, lingers longest despite its apparent simplicity. Five dancers in sombre black costume just dance, at first without even a bar of music, later to Schubert. The work explores the duality of the self, divided by the conflicting pull of head versus heart.
Cooper's choreography is intelligent, beautiful and complex without strain, and the dancers follow it to lyrical perfection. Crowther is the one who demands to be watched here - and throughout - for her intense musicality, strength and powerfully centred presence. And the work has that rare satisfaction - a tangible resolution.
Cooper, and friends, has created pure heaven.
