DARK!DARK!DARK!
Great Hall, Massey University, Buckle Street, Wellington
05/06/2025 - 07/06/2025
Production Details
Directors & Performers: Jahra Wasasala & ooshcon
CONJAH
DARK!DARK!DARK! is a Tagata Moana performance – a living bestiary within a subterranean epoch in-between the collapse of one world and the birthing of another. From the creative force of CONJAH (Jahra Wasasala and ooshcon), recipients of Kia Mau Festival’s inaugural innovative new initiative, He Toi Puaki, we present the world premiere of DARK!DARK!DARK!
DARK!DARK!DARK! is a living bestiary entangled within an epoch; a bodied ‘va’ or ‘vata’ between the collapse of one world and the birth of another. DARK!DARK!DARK! serves as a gathering point of the subterranean ancestral ecologies that thrive in the descent, mirroring our own interior depths. Honouring the mutations of living forms that have named themselves in the epoch, DARK!DARK!DARK! looks at how we can remake and remember ourselves amidst ecological terror.
Sharing multiple worlds within a work, DARK!DARK!DARK! dreams and remembers into known and speculative Tagata Moana lineages of darkness, story-telling and the pantheon of forms that inhabit them. Pushing the boundaries of their physicality, two performers shed their skin and become the unbecoming; using genre-bending dance, character performance, harsh vocalisation, sound distortion and larger than life design elements as catalysts.
The first full-length directorial and performance debut of CONJAH and collaborators, DARK!DARK!DARK! invites you to submerge and turn your sight towards some of our oldest Oceanic subterranean ancestors; the unnameable, the mutated, the beyond-body, the weird, the hybrid, the reborn, the buried, the unmade, the decaying, the endless – the DARK.
Venue: The Great Hall, Massey University, Buckle St, Wellington (the old Dominion Museum)
Dates: 5 – 7 June 2025
Times: 8.30PM
Prices: $15 – $35
Booking: https://kiamaufestival.org/events/darkdarkdark/
Opening Act Shaquille Wasasala
Mentor Grace Iwashita-Taylor
Guest Performer Josaia Wasasala
Featured Poems Noukahauoli Revilla, Grace Iwashita-Taylor
Opening Act Shaquille HALF QUEEN Wasasala
Font Design Timothy Russell
Image Frances Carter
Dance Coach Byrin XIII Mita
Physical Conditioning Trainer Alisa Thia
Funding / Residency / Support Credits Kia Mau Festival, Creative New Zealand, The Banff Centre D.A.I.R, Dancenorth A.R.T Residency, LGI Residency, Ūkaipō, The Sauna, The Pool Haus
Learn More About Jahra Wasasala
Jahra (Arieta) Wasasala is an award-winning Fijian / Pākehā world-builder, dancer, facilitator and writer, raised on and informed by the whenua of Tamaki Makaurau, Aotearoa. Within Viti (Fiji), Jahra hails from the provinces of Macuata and Ba. Jahra’s practice centres embodied and disembodied phenomena, bridging the phenomena’s breadth of physicality into shared performances. Jahra’s growing body of work builds into visions of liberation and calls in memories of creature-led language located in-between one world ending and another world beginning. Drawing from multiple dance teachings and cultures, Jahra embraces these forms with emotional rigour and innovative theatrical practices that contribute to the canon of Tagata Moana future-mythos.
An internationally touring performer, facilitator, and published writer, Jahra’s solo and company performance work has toured across Aotearoa (NZ), so-called Australia, Hawai’i, New York, Germany, Fiji, Guahån and Canada. Highly collaborative, Jahra’s practice expands into sound, adornment, poetry, sculpture, costume and digital realms through their collaborations, offering a studied and immersive world-building experience that continues through different works and periods of time.
Jahra’s work becomes a consistent partnership with their partner Ooshcon through ‘CONJAH’. CONJAH is a performance and facilitation focused entity, creating solo and ensemble works, facilitating workshops for a wide spectrum of communities and producing dance festivals.
Learn More About ooshcon
ooshcon is an award-winning Sāmoan / Pākehā dancer, facilitator, theatre-maker and ‘decipherer of circles’, who specialises in ‘free-body’ dance methodologies. ooshcon hails from the villages of Lalomanu and Veilele in Samoa and was raised in and is informed by the whenua of Te Awa Kairangi ki Uta, Aotearoa (NZ).
The core belief ‘ina ia sosolo le alofa / so love may flow’ is imbued into ooshcon’s evolving practice and way of being, creating works, collaborations and spaces that are alofa-informed. A recognised Street Dance Battler, Street Dance Theatre maker and performer, ooshcon has toured in dance works across Aotearoa (NZ), so-called Australia, Tahiti, Fiji, Mexico, Las Vegas, San Diego, China and Taiwan. Drawing from multiple dance teachings and cultures, ooshcon embraces these forms with emotional rigour and innovative theatrical practices that contribute to the canon of Tagata Moana future-mythos.
ooshcon’s work becomes a consistent partnership with their partner Jahra Wasasala through ‘CONJAH’. CONJAH is a performance and facilitation focused entity, creating solo and ensemble works, facilitating workshops for a wide spectrum of communities and producing dance festivals.
Lighting Design Elekis Poblete Teirney
Sound Design Oliva ‘Spewer’ Luki
Sound Design No Pity
Producer Kasi Valu
Dance , Pasifika contemporary dance ,
60 minutes
Powerful messaging reaching beyond the dark.
Review by Marcus Dillon 11th Jun 2025
DARK!DARK!DARK! is the debut full-length work of CONJAH (Jahra Wasasala and ooshcon), which carries the intention of being an exploration and gathering of Tagata Moana’s most ancient ancestral ecologies, presented here as ‘The DARK’, and how they can assist us to remould ourselves to stand against political and ecological terror.
Embodying the in-betweenness of the collapse of one world and the birth of another represents a poignant message desperately needing to be made, given our current circumstances in Aotearoa. It is no secret that our nation, like many across the world, has a long history of misdeeds, oppression and ignorance against the ways and knowledge of groups deemed to be society’s ‘Others’, most especially Indigenous peoples. And today, in a world that seems set on taking steps backward, reminders to question these ill-advised courses of action are incredibly welcome.
Before the piece even begins, the message is already being established. From the moment you enter and walk around the promenade stage, you will notice a performer, in a larger-than-life costume, sitting before a DJ deck, treating you to some tunes. What’s interesting is the song’s content. Many have lyrics advocating for freedom and democracy whilst rallying against tyranny and the oppression of governments. At one point, the DJ pauses the songs and starts to play Charlie Chaplin’s famous monologue from ‘The Great Dictator’ (1940), which denounces fascism and systems of dictatorship. There is no risk of illusion that this piece won’t stick to its message, and upon its beginning, as darkness comes to envelop the whole space, you know. The time has come to let darkness transform you.
It has become an increasingly popular trope, even in small-scale dance and theatre productions, to use elaborate and impressive design and performance elements that elevate the work beyond the audience’s expectations. DARK!DARK!DARK! goes all in with this concept, and the result is fascinating and contributes well to the conveyance of subtle yet effective messaging.
Often, these elements incorporate a recurring theme of shining a light into the darkness, putting ourselves and at times the performers into a state of trance as we wonder what this rare moment of luminous contrast could represent. It struck me as a sort of analogy to the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’; a way of saying how we must embrace and learn from what is unknown, how darkness can teach us to accept change, yet not as a destiny, but as a continuing struggle and reach for what is beyond the threshold. A strong message, intended or otherwise, where staging and lighting are just as alive as the performers and play an active role in the storytelling, is a saddeningly rare occurrence in my experience, but is one of DARK!DARK!DARK!’s greatest triumphs, confirming that this performance is fizzing with potential.
However, there are mixed feelings about the work and for all that it does incredibly well, there are a couple of things that prevent it from reaching the lightning-in-a-bottle sensation established well in the opening section. Ultimately, the piece’s length and loss of momentum are due to many sections that don’t all succeed in holding interest for their duration. Perhaps other stage elements could have helped sustain them further. I found myself waiting for the end at times, or for a different exciting invigoration to arrive.
Yet the performers are brilliant and wholly deliver on their promise of a ‘genre-bending’ style of movement, and I wanted more. Here is a new style and language of movement, which at first is so incredibly captivating; however, by the end of the performance, it begins to feel repetitive. Yet the message is powerful enough on its own, and DARK!DARK!DARK! and its design team are deserving of mountains of praise; despite the presence of a few shortcomings, there is unquestionably far more right going on here, and the audience is listening deeply.
As a first directorial and performance debut as CONJAH, it is a promising one. I am optimistic that their next endeavour will be just as bold, and its potential even more realised. Watch out for these rising stars.
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