In praise of nature's patterns

Moss Patterson is passionate about his culture's spiralling patterns

Choreographer Moss Patterson is on a roll. His latest work Kokowai, a 10-minute exposition on the sacred red clay revered in Maori culture as decoration for buildings and bodies, features large in Feats of Fancy, the latest programme from Footnote Dance, opening in Auckland tonight.

Kokowai is the fifth work he has made, expanding on the Maori motif of kowhaiwhai or spiralling patterns, and associated Maori knowledge.

"People ask me why I am still making works about that. But my philosophy is you can't just make one work based on one idea and expect to be happy with it forever.

"A painter might make 40 or 50 pictures on a single theme. But you can't just sit down and make a whole lot of dances like that.

"You need people, a space. It is far more complicated. So what I am doing is creating my collection on one theme over time."

His first work in the series, titled Koru, was created while he was a dancer in the Black Grace dance company.

In 2003 came Pitau, which explored different configurations of the koru shape.

Te Ngaru, based on the patterns of waves, and Kura, which explored the qualities of the colour red, significant in Maori art forms, were created for Footnote in 2004 and last year, respectively.

"This year, I attended a workshop with Richard Nunns and Robin Slow in Golden Bay and watched Robin, a painter, as he worked with the kokowai.

"It was fascinating and seemed a logical progression from exploring the red colour.

"We have a saying that people are always passing but the land always remains, and kokowai carries that meaning too.

"So this work is also about change, changes in life and how people get lost in all that, and about the idea of finding identity again in the land or in a place, a home base. For me, as a dancer, that home base is my body."

Also inspiring the new work was Nunns' music, performed on traditional Maori instruments.

Pitch Black musician Paddy Free was also at the workshop and much of the resulting music was recorded and has formed the basis for Kokowai's evocative score.

Nunns is a Pakeha and met some resistance because of that in some corners of Maoridom, but Patterson says he is the appointed successor of author and musician Hirini Melbourne, who died in 2003.

Patterson, Ngati Tuwharenui, originally from Turangi, went with his family to Central Otago as a youngster, and completed his schooling there.

His first performances were in a teenage covers band, as singer and lead guitarist. He had two years at performing arts school majoring in acting, but found a particular interest in the movement sketches that were part of the course.

His only experiences of dance were Michael Jackson videos and club dancing, but he headed north to audition for a place in the dance school at Auckland's Unitec.

"I thought I'd better get all the gears for that," he laughs, "so I turned up in thermo tights and top, with my hair scraped back in a bun.

"Everyone else was in pyjamas and singlets. Cringe! I must have looked like a beached whale - especially as I was a good 10kg heavier than I am now."

But his karate kicks and rolls scored him a place in the school, and he was quickly noticed by Dierdre Tarrant, of Footnote, and Neil Ieremia, of Black Grace.

He took classes with the Black Grace company in his final year at Unitec.

On graduating, he was offered a place in Footnote, and for two years he learned how to tour and soaked up Tarrant's expertise in dance education.

He then joined Black Grace and was absorbed into "the bro environment", with its structured discipline. He also absorbed Ieremia's strong sense of production and performance values.

In 2002 he left Black Grace to become a freelance dancer and choreographer, working with Footnote again, Touch Compass, and Atamira.

Now he is head of dance at Te Wananga o Aotearoa, passionate about his students and developing a Maori contemporary technique, and aspires to his own company one day. To this end he is studying for an MBA, with a focus on arts management.

What: Feats of Fancy: Footnote Dance
Where and when: Herald Theatre, tonight and tomorrow, 8pm