First landing on 'Pillow'

By BERNADETTE RAE

Black Grace Dance Company is to make its American debut in August at the top-rated Jacobs Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts - the first New Zealand company to be honoured with an invitation.

The festival has showcased many of the world's greatest dancers and companies for 72 years and Black Grace will line up alongside such luminaries as Mark Morris, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Nacho Duato from Spain, and the Boston Ballet.

Jacobs Pillow executive director Ella Baff, who travels the world to watch dancers, said the New Zealand company was "quite wonderful and different from any other work I've seen".

The festival programme describes Black Grace as "incorporating the dance and music traditions of the Maori and Pacific Island people in a contemporary dance vocabulary" and as exhibiting "boundless energy with tempered refinement as they career across the stage for the company's demanding physical repertory".

At Black Grace's Newton studio, artistic director Neil Ieremia is rehearsing the company for a return trip to Sydney, where they will perform this week at a Tourism New Zealand extravaganza.

Arrangements are under way for a fundraising event to support the Jacobs Pillow presentation. The Black Grace Trust will co-host an auction on August 5 at the Wintergarden, with The Edge and Kim Crawford Wines. Items have already been donated by artist John Pule, author Albert Wendt and fashion house Zambesi. The evening will conclude with performances by Black Grace and musician Don McGlashan.

Ieremia has known about the invitation to "the Pillow" - as it is known - since last October, when Baff saw the company at the Holland Dance Festival in The Hague.

"The Netherlands Dance Theatre was performing works by Kylian just across the road," Ieremia says. "It was amazing. There they were, legs everywhere, very minimalist and incredible. And there we were, wandering out on to our stage saying, 'Good evening, I'm Neil ... ' "

Homespun and heart-to-heart introductions to individual works have long been a Black Grace signature. The procedure, which has endeared Black Grace to Kiwi hearts, charmed Dutch audiences. The tour was a sellout, with fans following them from city to city.

Ask Ieremia what he thinks makes Black Grace "different" in Baff's expert eyes and he pauses only briefly before making a confession.

"I have been having a hard time watching my own choreography lately. After one performance in Hamilton I just had to drive home immediately, I felt so upset and disappointed."

Insight came on the drive to Auckland. "I had been so caught up in the growth, in Black Grace as the well-oiled arts machine with a nice studio and office, all going well, performing here and there and everywhere, that I had forgotten what makes us who we are. I forgot about the heart.

"So I am remembering who we are, at heart and that includes our parents and families. They are expecting us to tell their stories, as well."

Black Grace is now almost 10 years old. The company shines because of the honesty of its collective voice and the individuality of its dancers, carefully nurtured by Ieremia. "It is my hope that at Jacobs Pillow they will not only see and remember this small New Zealand company dancing before them, but will feel a nation of people with great pride in who we are, our land, our sea and our sky."