A review in real time. 

I, the reviewer (Tiaki Kerei), sit in a fold-out chair

She, the dancer/co-choreographer (Brittany Kohler), crouches with a slow, deliberate inner holding 

We, the people, are slowly gathering on an overcast day 

They, the land is the Wellington wharf nestled on the moana side of Te Papa Tongarewa

Huddled, in penguin pairs wearing puffy parkas

The score (Wild Sonic Blooms) is undulating, slow and full of gravitas 

The container, part of The Performance Arcade, is next to other artful offerings. A Pasifika-style dance workshop is playing a few metres away. 

Dripping, muslin cloths line the crate, prepared for this ritualistic skin-meets-earth pigmentation, sluiced with water. 

Recently, an overnight electrical failure caused a catastrophic sewage spillage at Moa Point. 

Rough, grimy, brown, soil all across, hanging white banners. 

I pull up my lavalava, a makeshift scarf/head covering, to shelter from the wind. It is gentle, but tinged with cold. 

Undulating torso, deep squat, circular outstretched arms, flick and release. 

Feet glide like vines up the container walls, her arms bear the body’s weight. Shaking, tenderly, sustained, this mini landscape starts to pave the way for a faster pace. 

A body made whole, of earth, of textures, and curves. And gravity, she drips. Wiping her face on the hanging cloths. 

Enter, the twin dancer, choreographer, facilitator (Natasha Kohler). Dry, straight into a bearing of weight. Wet meets dry. Dark meets olive green. 

Womb memories, instincts, connected third eye, 

Aro. To look within. Ha. The breath. 

Cinematic presence, a focused mitigation, and ecological formations

The second dancer is left alone. 

Crawling, pensively, a remnant, ancestral tracing. 

This durational performance. Sits in a crate. Emanating. The stage. Dripping. Raindrops fall on my phone screen. Helicopters overhead. 

The olive shirt is now seaweed green. Murky waters run deep. A third collaborator, visual artist (Megan Houching), who creates these earth artwork canvases, begins and ends the ritual with her sponging practice, smearing and enveloping the space, this atea – rinsing and cleaning, spreading and smearing. 

In reflection, I admire Dance Plant Collective’s style and delivery, strong and agile, subtle and grounded. A beautiful work that should be seen by more, but this is the challenge of performance activation and weather impacts in urban pedestrian spaces. Ataahua. 

Now time to head indoors to warm up with a hot drink. 

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer