There are several very good reasons to come into mid-city Tāmaki Makaurau at 11 pm, especially when the venue is the glorious landmark theatre, The Civic, and the (free) performance is a slick and sassy rendition of Night and Mortar, performed by contemporary dance connoisseurs Sean MacDonald and Hannah Tasker-Poland, and choreographed by the dynamic duo Oli Mathieson and Sharvon Mortimer (award winning makers of The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave along with Lucy Lynch).

This 45-minute dance noir, cabaret-esque duet amidst the palms, pottery, gold-trims, and feather-plumed interior of the Elephant Bar (aka the ‘Champagne Lounge’), is part of Auckland Live Cabaret Festival, which is host to a grand array of ‘intimate and tantalising performances’. Just entering the Civic with its streams of hanging glitter and three gorgeously welcoming drag queens in sequinned red, already set the scene and gave delight to my daughter and the German student I am hosting (free events are like gold for me and my family).

The bubbly and babbling ambience in the intimate lounge bar is from a range of ages and cultures along with a healthy small crowd of dance industry people, bringing a personal joy of reunion to the event. After finding a decent place to view from,  as sightlines are compromised for many, the audience is instantly hushed as the two performers enter the space from a long corridor, wrapped around each other via entangled jackets, with slicked-back hair and chiselled beauty. It’s a magic thing when performers hold the space so well with an entrance, and from there on we are privy and putty to their expressive dancing and often humorous relationship.

Tasker-Poland and MacDonald are dazzling, not only in the swift and highly choreographed sequences of intricate gestural detail, but more so in their transformative performing prowess as pseudo 1940s characters, who are at times playing a duality of one, or distinctively two in opposition and/or collusion.

MacDonald looks like a Māori Clark Gable and exemplifies his debonairness in movement with an open connection to the audience that is dashingly playful, whilst Tasker-Poland (a far more saucy Scarlett O’Hara), employs her expansive experience in Burlesque and theatre, and draws us in with her wide-eyed wilyness and liquid-like manoeuvres. Both costumed in wide-legged pants and dinner jackets reminiscent of the 30s and 40s, the duet distinctively moves between old and contemporary ‘voices’ glitching them together through the movement, signifying a flickering and hesitant relationship to the past and present, and an ever-present potentiality of backstabbing deals or swooning love dives.

The world of Night and Mortar that Mathieson and Mortimer created through their own kooky, playful, and dextrous dancing and deft performance abilities is well cast and developed here by this evening’s duo. Having been lucky enough to see the original show at The Cupid Bar in Auckland in 2022, I was reminded of the famous comical duet, Laurel and Hardy, as the dance evolves into a slapstick slaughter sequence that is fantastically synced to a ‘foley’ sound score of punches, bone cracks, shrieks and gunfire. However, this version is somehow revealing more layers, more palpable undercurrents, along with contrasting jazzy tunes, and ruptured/rumbling sounds, and I can’t help feeling that even slapstick murder is a bit ‘on the nose’, and frankly, my dear, I do give a damn. This is precisely why Night and Mortar is as much alluring and entertaining as it is packing a punch.

A moment where shadowing is beautifully played out by a supine Tasker-Poland, glued to the feet of a backtracking MacDonald, builds our relationship to the shadows we all carry, the darkness/ lightness of the work coming through more strongly, acknowledging a yin and yang in our identities, the victim and protagonist within, the mistrust and the lust.

The engaging, interchangeable and interjecting performance, which dallies with ideas of dysfunction in collaboration, colliding stereotypes of masculinity and femininity, is a kind of wrestling with romanticism, and another duo, Bonnie and Clyde, come to mind. Yet it also feels like a whodunnit, where we all did it. When Tasker Poland ‘dips’ MacDonald, they freeze in an expression that could at once be a sign of pain, fear, or desire, and the ambiguity is intriguing.

But perhaps I am looking too deeply as I return to the delightfulness in movement innovation and interplay between the performers. If anything, I would like to have witnessed more of this playful dueting, where the performers are given more freedom to step outside the choreographic rhythm and into their own potent performance timing. Yet I appreciate the refined structure they are working with, where micro cigarettes are magically produced from the mouth of Tasker-Poland, snapshot movements depicting dread and disgust mingle into a finale of clipped, sharp dancing that fully unites the duo’s complicity. The sudden ending of music and the last glances from MacDonald and Tasker-Poland feel like an unfinished conversation, but this does not bother me as they depart in a strong huddle as if their lives depend on it.

Night and Mortar is a mobile melange of dance theatre cabaret with outstanding performers that needs to be seen more in the foyers of theatres around the motu. It feels like Freda Stark, the famous 1930s cabaret star who performed at the Civic in her heyday, was being channelled, from her unsettling war-torn era, to resurfacing and reflecting the current era of unsettling wars today. And perhaps we are both Night and Mortar, complicit in the murder scene as well as desiring to be loved.

Bravo to the makers and dancers, Mathieson, Mortimer, Tasker-Poland and MacDonald. You are the crime scene I want to see more of, perhaps with different targets and accomplices, but hopefully always dancing accessible, site-specific, economical, and highly effective dance pieces. And kudos to Auckland Live for what looks like a bubbling, vibrant and fiercely entertaining cabaret festival.

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

Night and Mortar is a chance to add a drop of dance with your drink of choice, bringing contemporary dance into the non-traditional location of an urban bar.

The work begins with the duo walking down a set of stairs to their performance space in the corner of the room, their jackets entangled. Dressed in business attire and moving as one organism, the relationship between the dancers builds as they navigate their attachment, creating a sense of tension and suspense that seems to rise and thicken the atmosphere as the work continues.

Motifs of cigarette smoking, clinking glasses, and looking over one’s shoulder set the moodiness as the bar space is transformed into a world inspired by film noir.

The physicality of the work is very clever, and every movement has been well thought-out and clearly intentioned. A particular highlight is a section where the dancers match their movements to film dialogue. Some of the movements performed take a direct influence from the words spoken, and the way the dancers match the timing of the movements to the drama of the spoken words and footsteps is satisfying to watch as the scene unfolds through gestures and quick shifts of position in the space. Hilarity ensues in a fight scene where the dancers struggle with each other to a soundscape of slaps in a theatrical back and forth.

I found myself wanting more interaction with the dancers, and more acknowledgement of the unique space we were in – though this may have been an intentional choreographic choice, and it did have the effect of a sense of separation between the audience and the dancers, as though we were watching the dancers through a movie screen, in their orchestrated realm. Perhaps some further use of the space beyond the corner of the bar and some weaving of the dancers between bar patrons would have been enough to satisfy this desire for interaction.

Overall, the work is slick and sophisticated. The dancers move through intricate gestural phrases with attention and ease, and the fuller body movement is just as engaging for the viewer. Both wholly occupy their space with their embodied presence, and dance with skill and style. The different portions of the work, and the uneasy relationship between the dancers, are expertly crafted to provoke the dark, noir aura.

Night and Mortar is a quick plunge into a world of noir, the perfect accompaniment to your evening drink at your local. I appreciate the way that this work brings contemporary dance into new and various spaces, in a way where people who may be unfamiliar with dance, can access it in a non-confrontational manner.

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