Coinciding with winning the Creative NZ Arts Pasifika Business Award this week, Black Grace staged its latest show in its own newly established studio in Ophir St, Newton. The ever gracious Neil Ieremia, addressing the audience after the opening night performance, acknowledged the sponsors who have supported the company currently and over the last 30 years, as this long dreamt of facility has finally been realised.
Explaining that the two bold murals outside the Black Grace Fale are of his late father and his 21-year-old son he acknowledged both the past, and the future possibilities that await. A sense of family pervades the fale with young and old in attendance and it is Ieremia’s quiet determination to bring his ideas to fruition over three decades at the helm that defines his leadership.
A somewhat tongue-in-cheek conceptualisation of the Big themes of life, Eggyssey was a non-stop, high-energy explosion of colour, rhythm and life. Costumed by Zambesi in oversized jackets in vivid monocolour, contrasting pants and white Tees, the dancers looked to be having great fun and from the get-go the audience was drawn irresistibly into the exuberance.
A melee of constant movement, there was no moment when the ten dancers were not twitching, pulsing, bouncing, stamping, vocalising, and smiling or grimacing, laughing or crying, except when they were in slow motion or freeze control which required an equal amount of strength and precision timing.
An ensemble piece that blooded the first alumni of another Ieremia dream - the Academy which aims to train new dancers in all disciplines of a full dance career. After a three month 20 hour a week programme of evenings and weekend workshopping, they appear alongside Company dancers who cement Black Grace’s success nationally and off-shore. Among them Faith Schuster, a mesmerising concentration of power, Isope Akauola delivering sensuous fluidity, while dynamo Deija Vukona commands attention with her unwavering gaze.
This felt like a celebration, much deserved, of all that has been accomplished over three decades, and what is still to come.
If you don’t leave the fale bouncing, pulsing, or dancing even, you will most surely be smiling. (Cait McLennan Whyte)
Company B - THE EGGYSSEY
20 - 31 October
Black Grace Fale
4 Ophir St, Auckland Central
