This is part of Foot­note’s Forte series which “has a spe­cif­ic object­ive to bring New Zeal­anders who have excelled off shore home to make work here.” Ber­lin based cho­reo­graph­er Lisa Densem has cre­ated a work set to music by Andrew Thomas. In the pro­gramme she writes the per­form­ance aim is “to cre­ate a struc­ture that could allow the heightened ‘atten­tion’ and charged space to con­tin­ue liv­ing with each per­form­ance.”

The stage is com­pletely open and bare of props. Six dan­cers meander around, occa­sion­ally paus­ing to pose. Some­times they slowly turn their heads towards the audi­ence as if to check that we’re watch­ing. There is some­thing slightly unnat­ur­al about the way they move.  A knee is bent at a strange angle. Hands are held awk­wardly. They often remind me of dolls. A plastic doll has limbs set in a pos­i­tion and when they are moved past a cer­tain point the pos­i­tions look unnat­ur­al. I can sense their con­cen­tra­tion. They are aim­ing for spe­cificity in their poses, some­times only a few muscles move as they stretch.  Gradu­ally the move­ment changes as the dan­cers come togeth­er and now there are two people mov­ing as one creature. The creatures feel strangely famil­i­ar des­pite their mul­tiple legs (and arms, hands, faces.) These creatures break and now the dan­cers are like pool balls boun­cing off each oth­er, clump­ing togeth­er, scat­ter­ing, and form­ing again. The six of them weave their arms around each oth­er, hold­ing on to shoulders, waists, faces. They are in con­stant con­trolled slow motion. Occa­sion­ally one will cartwheel in the group, or be spun on the side. I find this the most com­pel­ling sec­tion of the per­form­ance.

The per­form­ance is sub­dued com­pared to the exuber­ant cho­reo­graphy usu­ally seen in NZ and it reflects the aim per­fectly.