Paradise: at the Sky City Theatre

By BERNADETTE RAE

A golden girl undulates, hips and liquid hands, in a pool of light, in a sort of hula, a type of tamure. In the deep shadows other bodies scuttle and writhe, barely visible but strong presences of discontent.

Lemi Ponifasio's Paradise is a complicated, painful, angry place.

There are hosts of other powerful images in this performance of vintage Mau quality.

The performance proper opens with a powdered male body seemingly suspended in space, the muscles of the strong torso performing slow solos, disconcerting duets.

Three light boxes support three magnificent men clad only in tribal penis wraps. They then convert their human shape to prisms of muscles, shards of sinew and bone.

A small woman slowly emerges from a foetal bud in a dark corner and crosses the stage in agonising steps, the pain of the whole world, the struggle to conquer it, seemingly embodied in her small being.

A man in suit pants and jacket, but bare-chested, dances a slow back arch beneath a cold, white point of light until he keels over.

There is more, much more, before the final journey of the powdered man, up and over a series of walls, lit by a pattern of quivering static, barely human, distinctly lizard in essence and form. And the confrontational final line-up of Mau people, all dressed in the blue lava lava and white shirts of the Samoan independence movement.

So what does it all mean?

The beautiful programme notes offer a clue.

"Paradise is an act of doubt, questioning, re-imagining and a celebration of survival and of the indomitable spirit."

Just be glad it is Paradise under Ponifasio's microscope and not his purgatory, his Hell.

One contribution to this remarkable event needs to be singled out, and that is the work of lighting designer Helen Todd. Light is the life force of this Paradise, teasing magic from the mundane, screeching out the danger of sharp edges, shiny surfaces, kissing static forms into subtle motion.

Light, she teaches us, is just like our conscious reality, determining what and how and when we see. Light and darkness, above all else, define our space.

Space, and in particular, the sacred Samoan space, the "Va", is a prime importance to Ponifasio and almost two-thirds of the time we spend in Paradise is spent in ensuring this concept is paramount to the whole experience.

A rousing powhiri, or feiloaiga "opens the space" and a poroporoaki, finally settles the space "in repose".

Several well-rehearsed Maori groups participated on opening night.

Will they all be in Venice for the Biennale performance at the end of October?