Dance troupe cuts apron strings from its founder

Acquisitions 06 is the company's first show in three years. Picture / John McDermott

Next year Touch Compass, Auckland's inspiring mixed-ability dance company, will celebrate its first decade. But founder and artistic director Catherine Chappell describes it as a "teenager" already.

There has been a distinct transitional stage. The birth of Chappell's son Joshua 18 months ago dictated a change in the company's dynamics, in which Chappell was chief dynamo.

Over the past three years, as well as producing and tending her "delectable little son", she has been busy putting systems in place to enable others to pick up some of the reins, organise funding and share the wealth of knowledge she has accumulated.

"Touch Compass was my baby for many years," she says. "Now it is developing its own attitudes, getting more independent, moving away from mum."

The amazing troupe incorporates dancers in wheelchairs and those not, those with stereotypically perfect bodies and those without, and people with extraordinary talents.

It has not performed in the mainstream for three years but it has had a busy calendar, with corporate and disability organisation events, a performance at Te Papa and at the Giant Leap Festival at Tapac last year.

Now in rehearsal for Acquisitions 06, a full evening programme which opens in Auckland tonight, Chappell, looks firmly in control, despite claiming she feels a little shaky after three years away from choreography.

"A six-week rehearsal period is tough, especially when there are five new works to get ready," she says.

"The first three weeks were scary. We were only working part time and, even then, we didn't have the whole company together."

Now, Chappell has hit her stride. Her piece, titled And, probes the complex cellular dance that defines us, involving the duality of our genetic heritage and flashing colourful images of the sequencing of our DNA.

"It is about acknowledging where we come from, and I am not worried whether people get that or not," she says. "It is a movement-based piece and that balances out the rest of the programme."

And is also informed by the workshopping of a full-length work that Chappell has in progress, in collaboration with Justin Lewis (of The Candlestickmaker and Krishna's Dairy fame), that is planned for October next year and Touch Compass' 10th anniversary celebrations.

It uses all 11 company dancers, including Jesse Steele and Luisi Faiva, who have been Touch Compass stars from its inception. Other performers are Julia Milsom, Matt Gibbons, Daniel King, Bronwyn Hayward, Tim Turner, Sarah Campus, Maaka Pepene, Suzanne Cowan, and newcomer Daniel Mullen. Philip Patston will open the showcase event, with his distinctive style of comedy.

Other works in Acquisitions 06 are choreographed by Malia Johnston, (Miniatures, Terrain) Alexa Wilson, (LNC, Magic Box) Matt Gibbons, (Monster) and Suzanne Cowan, the first disabled choreographer to have work accepted by Touch Compass for public performance.

Bronwyn Hayward's short film Beauty will also have its Auckland premiere in the programme.

Cowan has been a dancer from the age of 5, but she was confined to a wheelchair at 22 after suffering an accident.

She discovered Touch Compass in 1999, then landed a job with CandoCo UK the following year.

CandoCo is a fulltime, professional, mixed-ability dance company based in London which tours internationally. In three and a half years with CandoCo, Cowan performed in 24 countries.

Her work in Acquisitions 06 is titled Hephaestus and Ares. Ares is the Greek god of war, his brother, god of the forge and the only disabled Greek deity.

"It deals with issues like male relationships and sibling rivalry, the dynamic of one disabled, the other not, and of awareness of disability," says Cowan.

"I am interested in what society does with that awareness. The response can be quite weak, tokenistic. Just look at this building [Tapac in Western Springs] - it is two years old but where is the access for disabled people?

"Right round the back of the building, down an alley, through the kitchen - and there are no signs." 

*  Touch Compass in Acquisitions 06, The Concert Chamber, May 3-7