Physically fine-tuned and energised bodies performed to a well-filled Wellington Opera House for Footnote Dance’s first performance of its seven city season.

The evening began with Mercy: A Dance for the Forgotten,which  premiered in Wanaka on 24 April. For  Raewyn Hill, the six weeks she spent in Australia with Tasdance to create this substantial work was both personally challenging and validating. Inspired initially by Tasmania’s convict past and the 1996 mass shooting in Fort Arthur, Mercy: A Dance for the Forgotten is as much about violence, repression, misery and poignancy within society and ourselves.

A bell tolls as Pergolesi’s Marian Vespers, reconstructed by musicologist, Malcolm Bruno begins. Superb lighting effects from the outset start with thin threads of light picking up the red ribbons extending from the dancers lying spread-eagled on the floor to ‘on high’. Marionette style, the dancers are controlled and manipulated.

Press gang chains clank hauntingly in stark contrast with the ecclesiastical music. Bondage, domestic violence, and even the sacrificial lamb feature in a beautifully controlled passage, hanging upside down on a pole supported by two male dancers.

Strong yet fluid performances by Derrick Amanatidis and Trisha Dunn are complimented by the other four dancers in their black corsets and layered net skirts.

As though on stilts, the sequence with women carried above the men is stunningly sustained. At first frenzied, movements in the latter part of this lengthy work give way to striking shapes and sensitive use of often somewhat neglected arms and hands in contemporary dance. Although glorious, this score is long and some sections choreographically need editing as well.

Hopefully the collaboration with Tasdance will continue and produce more valuable opportunities for trans-Tasman interaction.

Bahkti, the first work by Footnote Dance, disappoints. Choreographed by Michael Parmenter, walking in circles and figures of eight gives way to running and then inclusion of some leaps. 

Kokowai, choreographed by Moss Patterson, is another ‘high mileage’ number, a machine-like soundscape emphasising the incessant energy created and spent. If red kokowai paint symbolises "prestige, pride and sacredness", pulling their own and each other’s hair seems to bear little relevance. It was sad to hear that Sarah Knox injured herself badly in this work – so much so that the final work of the programme, the much anticipated one by Malia Johnson, had to be cancelled.

Tim Fletcher’s The Chicken or the Lamb provides a quirky view of people dealing with long haulage flights. For that protracted duration of the temporary cooped up community, even the same path is a different journey within for each of the travellers.

From strikingly dramatic, somewhat crazed Erynne Wilson to the nonchalant, each person’s character is established and portrayed with varying degrees of definition.

Around the World in Wellington, conceptualised and directed by Deirdre Tarrant, was created for the recent Capital E Festival. Better suited for that environment than the Opera House stage, the charming stories related by a child’s voice are personified by the dancers. From the literal Chinese lion to the more abstract interpretations of the German, half-Danish, Polish, the Turkish and pertinent Gallipoli tale, and Sri Lankan, snippets like that of the elephant and lots of ants endure.

Tarrant writes: "The stories are all very individual and they tell us a little about how they keep their own cultures alive while being kiwi kids." Playground games and rounds are fun and would appeal to the younger audiences.

With Malia Johnson’s Broken by Design not able to be performed owing to the injury sustained by Knox, Match was the last work on the programme. Created by Christchurch-based Julia Sadler, this is described as:
"Find a match / Be a match / Meet one’s match…"

Although extremely athletic and energetic, this work fails to fully ignite. In music there is an identifiable progression from scales to arpeggios, etudes to sonatas, concerti to symphonies. It is not as easy to distinguish in choreography. At times filling the music available with movements seems to be given greater importance than tending to the dynamic overall structure and shape of the work, and what it is intending to convey to the audience.

It is a shame that the attractively produced programme cannot be read by many, even with magnification, its tiny font indistinct in the half-lit theatre between works.

Delivering a NZ Made programme, including not only the choreography but also almost all of the music (with its individual sponsors listed with the programme notes), is a great credit to Footnote Dance, as is its allegiance with Tasdance.

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