Who Are We Now? is a very entertaining, high-energy show that had the audience on its feet and dancing with the cast at the finale.

It is performed by ChoreoCo,  a short-term company created especially for the New Zealand Fringe Festival and which comes under the Footnote umbrella.

Choreographer Maria Dabrowska is a very inventive dance maker, whose work usually has a wider view than simply dance and so it is here.

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Six joyless, indifferent, newspaper readers shuffle through pages on stage at Circa Theatre. They are the cast of choreographer Maria Dabrowska’s latest collaboration with Choreoco – Foootnotes’ Fringe Festival Company. They are Veronica Butturini, Lydia Connolly-Hiatt, Josh Faleatua, Sione Fataua, Adam Naughton and Paige Shand. They look disengaged, with the pretense of being engaged. There is stiffness to their beings. However, beyond this opening stanza the cast of six and the work ‘Who are we now?’ are every bit engaged and engaging.

The work itself has a scattered feel. It was a ’Where are we now?’ experience for me. I jump around as a viewer but we are easefully entertained and taken in every which direction that the performance goes. All credit to the dancers for their loose, open, honest and playful engagement with the script.     

Structurally there is a pattern of highlighting individuals and pairs, inner and inter-personal experiences, punctuated with buoyant group activities. On reflection I can make a sense of these scenes, as these artists are questioning our collective choices of how we live in our bodies, positing that we have the potential to generate more joy in our everyday lives. It is hence a social choreography that intersects clearly with choreography beyond the theatrical stage. It is also very much a social event, as bold moves are made to interconnect with the audience.    

What strikes me most about this performance is the tangible forms of energy that are produced through the exuberant, trance-like, (unison like), sections of ‘group’ choreography. Such sections demand a particular form of engagement from the body, and connection between bodies. A specific attention, that whilst focused, ricochets throughout the black box injecting all with its force. It is a kind of joy-producing machine. This feel, this emphasis, this effect, is for me, this work’s success.

Like the performers, this work is but young! It’s only three weeks old. And whilst we’re always unfinished, ‘Who are we now?’ needs a chunk more time to navigate its own complexities and settle in with some conceptual clarity. The work in its infancy still shines bright, as do the industry’s newbies!   

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