Torua
19/02/2021 - 20/02/2021
Production Details
Tōrua is a new series of movement performances produced by Movement of the Human. We bring together 7 incredible movement artists from across Aotearoa who have created a beautiful new dance work that will be positioned into different environments and spaces throughout Wellington City.
Tōrua means different things depending on the context. The meanings we are inspired by are – A shift in energy to create a vibration of 2 things. And – to change direction like the wind or a current.
We are re-thinking the theatre – we are placing these pieces of dance against new sites of theatrical opportunity – bringing new meaning to spaces, places and architectural sites within the urban environment..
The Levels change and so we change what and where we dance.
Dancers from Tōrua invite you to a showing of some of the material created in the past 2 weeks during a workshop with Movement of the Human that explores simple movement constructs in outdoor space.
Contemporary solos, duets, and trios within the city landscape… We have chosen the Pukeahu National Memorial park as one of the spaces to share some material with you in a very relaxed and informal way, an outdoor space where you can choose your proximity to the performers and to other people.
Friday 19 Feb and Saturday 20 Feb at 8pm at Pukeahu park – Meet by the Brussels Wreath Sculpture. (Tory Street Side) it will last about 30-40 minutes.
The work will travel so please wear appropriate outdoor attire and footwear, bring warm clothes for the evening. Feel free to photograph and film.
MOTH is a company that brings together artists from all sorts of backgrounds, including dance, theatre, design, video and music. We’re interested in connecting with artists and communities, and offering different perspectives on contemporary life. We’ve staged works as diverse as Hurihrui – an outdoor spectacle for the Commonwealth Games Arts Festival in Australia in 2018, to Meremere an intimate dance theatre work right through to directing and choreographing the World of Wearable Art Awards Show, a huge indoor arena event. What drives us is how movement, combined with music and light can tell us and make us feel so much more than words alone. Creating and being immersed in theatrical and imaginative worlds with movement is a huge adventure. We discover new things. We are inspired by other perspectives through this which we discover new understandings and ideas and possibilities of worlds beyond our own. Being creative with other artists is what drives us and the kaupapa of Movement of the Human. We collaborate. Through the process of collaboration we are able to create something more, something bigger and something more meaningful than could be created by the individual.
Movement of the Human
Director Malia Johnston
DancersKia Jewell, Levi Siaosi, Xin Ji, Laifa Ta’ala, Gabriella Mersi, Connor Masseurs, Brydie Colquhoun
Site-specific/site-sympathetic , Outdoor , Improv , Family , Dance , Contemporary dance ,
60 mins
A ritual that explodes the space beyond expectations
Review by Lyne Pringle 20th Feb 2021
What if the City was a Theatre? This is the proposition made manifest by a smorgasbord of events springing up in unexpected places: streets, malls, cable cars, waterfront spaces.
In the gathering dusk of an exquisite – can’t beat Wellington on the a good day’ – evening, Malia Johnston, brilliant craftswoman, weaves magic at Puke Ahu park. Tōrua lovingly caresses the architecture of the space, bringing alive the intimate places and the expanses, as the audience follows the dancers from site to site. With hand held lights and speakers our cavalcade creates the technical web to support a series of idiosyncratic solos that chew on the particular propensity of each mover; intricately crafted duets, where bodies move and meld, some tender, some staunch and mesmeric group sequences that evoke the comradery and compelling rhythm of folk dance. The composition is by Anna Edgington.
Many moments are transcendent marriages of sound and movement. Skateboards clatter on the periphery, the sky turns pink, the light fades and in one moment a couple on a scooter beep their way through the centre of the choreography. The buzz, the hubbub, the everchanging fizz of humans going about their business adds to the aliveness of the evening.
The Movement of the Humans (MOTH) company are superb. Kia Jewell, Levi Siaosi, Xin Ji, Laifa Ta’ala, Gabriella Mersi, Toa Paranihi and Brydie Colquhoun bring their passion and brilliant capacity as movers to the event. Johnson’s great skill is her ability to draw out the best in performers. She allows them to express who they are as individuals and to flourish in their expressivity. Consequently the dancing is astounding – a ritual that explodes the space beyond expectations. As watchers we expand vicariously as the busy movement shamans cavort, caress the ground, run, leap and glide. On the way home my friends and I concur that it felt like a privilege to be there, to witness something so special.
What if the City was a Theatre is part of the tenth anniversary of the Performance Arcade. Congratulations to Sam Trubridge and his crew for creating stylish, surprising interventions that slice through the reality of the watcher to pierce the day to day notion of life in Wellington. It is refreshing – as if a gang of non-conformist dreamers have infiltrated our ‘hood’ to run amok and lift expectations, to take dance to ‘the people’. To expand our sense of what is living and show us that ‘art’ can rub shoulders with everyone. Some people come specially, having scoped out what’s on offer in the festival, some stop and watch spontaneously, some barely notice, passing by without pausing, but all, whether consciously or unconsciously, are woven into the fabric of the event. Moments are fleeting but are captured and posted. Herein lies the possibility for further reach – a dynamic duet between ‘live’ and ‘digital’ spaces a way to stay connected to the pulse of the ephemeral.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CLeFjNsA0rF/
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