Kapow! Splat! Escape into dance

Comic books were the inspiration for Urban Youth Movement's latest show. PAUL PANCKHURST reports.

A pop art paintbrush keeps whipping across Auckland, flicking out blobs of comic book sensibility to land, splat, who knows where. First, there was The Cartoon Show at the Auckland Art Gallery. Now the kapow of the comic book turns up in the new Urban Youth Movement dance show, Escape.

A quick glimpse of a rehearsal disclosed two comic book touches.

Thought bubbles popped up above the head of a dancer as he mimed a man eating furiously at the head of an imaginary table.

Lying around the dance studio were some big polystyrene blocks, intended to suggest the rubble of a ruined city. These were covered in graffiti patterns and an image of a comic book character named Wolverine.

Taking a break from the rehearsal, artistic director Neil Ieremia said the connection with the fantasy figures and imaginary worlds of comic books emerged through workshops where the young dancers explored ideas about escape, including mental escapes from the here and now.

Handily, the comic connection hooked into Ieremia's interest in pop art.

Urban Youth Movement is an offshoot of the six-year-old professional dance company Black Grace and is supported by The Edge Community Arts Programme.

The mentoring scheme is the son of Fresh, a dance programme Black Grace took to three Auckland schools - Mt Roskill Grammar, Hillary College and Howick College.

The new show marries the experience of the members of the dance company with the raw-edged talent and energy of 14 young dancers from across Auckland. The youngest is 15, the oldest 21.

One of the dancers, Jeremy Poi, said he learned about Urban Youth Movement through a teacher at Western Springs College, performed in the group's first show and, besides coming back for another stint, was working for Black Grace as an apprentice.

Another, Saili Williams, learned ballet from age 4, dropped it at 15, then hooked up with Black Grace through Fresh at Mt Roskill Grammar.

Ieremia noted that while the youth company included some top talents, the mixed goals of Urban Youth Movement meant even the hottest dancers could not expect a place in the company as of right.

One question was: who would benefit the most from the experience and from the lessons about discipline and hard work?

According to Ieremia, Escape came largely from the young dancers, drawn out by a workshop process that included movement vocabulary exercises.

He nudged, knocked and massaged the results into shape.

One of the themes of Escape is anger - "I don't do happy at the moment," said Ieremia - and that fact came through at the rehearsal in a piece where individual dancers acted out explosive rages, using the passive bodies of their dance partners as objects for their anger.

The pace of the show is suggested by the inclusion of My Mind's Sedate by Pacifier (formerly Shihad), although, at the other end of the spectrum, the rehearsal also included the mellow side of Chris Knox in the shape of the song Not Given Lightly. DJ Manuel Bundy will run the musical side of the show.

Escape coincides with a new phase for Black Grace which, for the first time, is receiving annual funding from Creative New Zealand. This year it amounts to $321,000. The dance company also has a new structure as a charitable trust rather than a company, as well as new premises in Newton.

One footnote. Quizzed about the white faces in Urban Youth Movement, Ieremia said despite perceptions, Black Grace was never intended to be exclusively a Maori and Pacific Island dance company.

* Escape, Concert Chamber, Auckland Town Hall, April 12-20.