Okareka Dance Company first presented this “biographical dance journey” of Taiaroa Royal and Taane Mete six years ago at Tempo, and it still thrills with great dancing and theatre.

The show opens with a film, Pito (or umbilical cord), created by the dancers with Mark Summerville, showing their birth into a dark savage other worldly place – the world of dance?  Almost naked, they are joined together by a thick rough umbilical cord, grunt and snarl at each other before they chew the cord through.  It turns into two eels, and red blood leaks out.  This starts off the next section with the shock appearance on screen of the two dancers in wigs, red party frocks and high heels, and so dressed, they now appear on stage!

This part, Tama Ma, is about them as drag queens.  Choreographed by Douglas Wright, it is accompanied by piano –David Guerin playing Prokofiev.  Royal and Mete gradually strip and we get a picture of the pain and hard work they go through to create their female glamour, till at last they are able to dance freely as themselves.  There is more than one crazy bit – and each gasps when the other tears off and eats the other’s false eye lashes!

A lit one bar box heater then appears on stage, and Royal, clad in a white shirt, and then Mete, huddle about it, sit on it, to sound from Eden Mulholland.  We can hear a clock ticking and children’s voices.  It’s called Rangatahi and is about the dancers when they were young.

The next section, Hand to Hand, choreographed by Michael Parmenter, starts with Royal alone on a dark stage, dressed in a suit, anxiously waiting for someone.  Mete, also in a suit, turns up and they shake hands, and gradually get comfortable with each other.  So develops this duet as they remove jackets, then socks and shoes, and with more confidence, are able to dance together, almost continuously in touch to build up a marvellous display of exchange of weight and support.  Eden Mulholland provides the music 

Finally, Mete and Royal come onto the stage from behind a loosely woven black back curtain split by a V of light.  They are in white, long, divided skirts and this part is called Whanaungatanga and is in memory of their fathers.  With arms lifted, and chests raised, and lit from the side, they float.  They move with breath, and their dance flows.  It is very moving.

A wonderful evening with just one negative – no programme was available for an almost full audience, and one that may never have seen the show before and so might have liked to know more about it.

Such a great pleasure to see this piece again – it has not lost any of its strength and still entrances.  We have been privileged.  

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A sustained standing ovation greeted dancers Taiaroa Royal and Taane Mete at the closing of Tama Ma on opening night.
The applause honoured the breadth and depth of their richly satisfying performance, their extraordinary artistry, and the excellence of all aspects of this highly collaborative project. And it honoured their courage, after 20 years of dancing for others, in establishing the Okareka Dance Company as a vehicle for further artistic collaborations of this far-reaching nature. [More]

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Tama Ma is the stunning result of two years of hard graft by two of Aotearoa’s most gifted and lauded dancers, Taane Mete and Taiaroa Royal, and a fantastic debut performance to herald the national premiere of their newly minted Okareka Dance Company.

The realisation of this project was eagerly anticipated, drawing together a team of collaborators, including Douglas Wright, Michael Parmenter, Eden Mulholland, Jeremy Fern and Elizabeth Whiting, to rival any production of this calibre both here and overseas.

Presented at the Concert Chamber at the Auckland Town Hall, the space is transformed by a dramatic red velvet curtain theatre evoking images of the Moulin Rouge or Broadway.

The premiere began closer to home however, with a customary mihi (welcome) by a Kaumatua (elder), whose oration eloquently and purposefully opened the whare (house), creating a sacred space, the inviting of ancestors and an acknowledging of papa (earth), tangata (people), whakaari (art), mauri (life force) and the pito (umbilical cord). He farewelled the late Mahinarangi Tocker, whose voice also features in the final act of the show. Appropriate and important, this protocol set the precedent for the connection we all have to aspects of life and culture that were explored within the show. It also honoured the mana and integrity of the two dancers who were to grace the stage, uplifting marginal communities across all barriers: cultural, gender, politic and personal.

Tama Ma is shown in 5 acts. The first is a film, Pito, directed by Mark Summerville that is projected onto a wheelable white silk screen sitting in the middle of the stage.  Two foetal figures, crouched against a black rumbly sky, introduce us to a world of the ancients, inhabiting Te Kore and Te Po. Ancestral and primordial, the two distinctly muscular dancers are joined by dreaded hair in a massive wig in the style of an umbilical cord.

Incredible cinematography leads us to a grove, a pile of dead leaves where these monstrous beings awaken in fits and starts, becoming aware of their own vulnerability as they are birthed into this scary place. Their defensiveness kicks in, as they take on dark panther-like and guttural forms, viscerally eating their hair, salivating, with eels propagating from the tear between them.

This Lord of the Rings-esque prologue is suddenly whipped away, as the two find themselves thrown into slinky dresses in full drag make-up, shaking the audience up by surprise and laughter. Joined by the real-life dancers in identical outfits, we are treated to a ‘Pussycat Dolls’ style show, preening themselves to the applause of the (willing) crowd as they ably milk the limelight.

This leads itself into Act 2, Tama Ma, choreographed by the great Douglas Wright. Set to Prokofiev, this work explores characters and the subtle and not so subtle shifts between gender roles. Acting drunk, fixing their hair, clips falling out, the two stumble un-glamorously, baring their bottoms clad in g-strings. Their little burgundy two-tone, froufrou skirts, give us images of Polynesian drag queens on Karangahape Road.

As the classical music envelops the space, they run across in diagonals, make grotesque and melodramatic clown like facial expressions, screech, and turn into high-heeled animals or yetis with their wigs masking their faces. As I watch Tama Ma, I have a thought that recurs throughout. I imagine this show being exported overseas as its global appeal is so excitingly obvious, a class above many other recent productions as far as performance goes and breaking boundaries in so many significant ways.

Back to the piece however: eyelashes are eaten and spat out, tissues drop from the sky, they become grotesque masked bandits with stockinged heads, a snake with the words etcetera is pulled across the stage. Tongue in cheek and playful, they variously become boys, men, women, creatures, instruments of god and finally tekoteko carvings in various stages and states of undressing and stripping away.

The third Act, Rangatahi, is a solo alternately performed by either dancer. Tonight was Mete, in a simple dance that began sunning his bottom lying near a heater. Gradually it warmed up, also with the lights and sound, where we see a childhood hearth and then a young man emerge.

Exposed, playful, melancholic. With lighting design by Jeremy Fern, a long bright window gobo creates a sensitive and beautifully orchestrated transition into adulthood.

The doorway into the next Act, Hand to Hand, an exquisite partnering duet from the one and only Michael Parmenter. A misty outdoors scene, gentle crickets, a suited up Royal texting and waiting, Mete appears (also suited), as a standoff and yielding to each other takes place.

Intensely focussed in the centre of the space, set to a clever soundtrack by composer Eden Mulholland, the duet explores a tension akin to martial arts or flamenco. Deep intensity is built through ease, fluidity and precision in an evolving series of lifts, grips, throws, catches, slides, and spins. Effortlessly done, yet undeniably tricky.

At this point the show takes on a whole new level, dispensing with humour to display the performers resonance with movement, years of artistry giving us the opportunity to bear witness to the highest expressions and ideals of dance. Emotional for the viewer as the work winds its way to its conclusion, the dancers every heartbeat is palpable and experienced, their love, passion and friendship enduring and endless.

The final act in this remarkable show is my favourite and the payoff we all want and expect. Whanaugatanga, choreographed by the duo themselves, is at the point I decide to stop making notes. Dedicated to the memory of their fathers, the middle of the backdrop lights up like an arch to heaven, as the two angels appear bare-chested in white skirt-like harem pants.

With Tocker’s voice sampled on the soundtrack, they float into a cascade of black transparent curtains. Blue gobos light the floor and them as if they are underwater or above the clouds, the backdrop looking like a feather cloak. It is truly beautiful, astonishing and heartfelt. I’m not ashamed to admit I had tears.

It is such an accomplishment of the spirit and everyone present is blessed to see such a display of New Zealand contemporary dance at its most excellent. Kia kaha e hoa ma.

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