Hana (Awhimai Fras­er) was sent away from the club in dis­grace by own­er Mr Sir (Tanemahuta Gray). She promis­es boyfriend, Ihia (Manuel Solomon), that she will return on a par­tic­u­lar night if he dances from dawn to dusk. But she is fright­ened by his father Sir Sir, (Nathan Gray) and unsure as to how she will be received by the rest of the club work­ers (Te Hau Wini­tana, Sandip Dosan­jh, Paige Shand, Brae­dyn Togi, Sharn Te Pou, Vanes­sa Immink). The Lady (Kali Kopae) and The Lord (Scot­ty Cot­ter) are deter­mined that how­ev­er ner­vous she is, Hana will return to Ihia. The future depends on it.

Being in the club pro­vides plen­ty of oppor­tu­ni­ty for cast mem­bers to show off their tal­ents. As the core char­ac­ter, Fras­er brings a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to Hana along with a beau­ti­ful singing voice. Solomon com­ple­ments this with a core of strength most­ly shown through dance and move­ment. Their scene at the end is exquis­ite. Twins, Tanemahuta and Nathan Gray, are men­ac­ing­ly effi­cient, and fer­al, respec­tive­ly. Their ener­gy on stage is bal­anced by the dance crew who cheek­i­ly dart their eyes at mem­bers of the audi­ence.  Cot­ter pro­vides some nec­es­sary grav­i­tas on stage as he stalks his way through the dance crew. This is reflect­ed in Kopae’s Lady to his Lord – she is force­ful­ly feisty as she first sings, then inter­acts with var­i­ous char­ac­ters. Full on aun­ty style. Sharn Te Pou is amaz­ing in both move­ment and voice.

At times, as the images flow over the screens and a syn­co­pat­ed rhythm fills the space I find myself won­der­ing when the per­form­ers are going to come back on stage. Then I realise that I don’t need them. The sto­ry is being told via the images and the music. Like­wise with the ensem­ble danc­ing which seemed to reflect the community’s response to Ihia’s emo­tion­al state. It’s a dif­fer­ent kind of the­atre which I find intrigu­ing. Writer/director Hone Kou­ka has drawn togeth­er an amaz­ing crew of cre­atives to bring his vision of a ‘hyper real dig­i­tal love sto­ry’ to life.

When I saw this show in devel­op­ment last year I admired its ambi­tion and audac­i­ty. The sto­ry need­ed a bit of clar­i­fi­ca­tion along with the invi­ta­tion to the audi­ence to par­tic­i­pate. I’m real­ly pleased that these areas have been worked on, mak­ing this an out­ra­geous com­bi­na­tion of dance, music, visu­al effects, and per­for­mance.

Reminder: There are $5 tick­ets for the show this Fri­day 3 July. ($5 cov­ers venue hire, you’re wel­come to give a koha as well.) Book  at Cir­ca The­atre on 048017992

Dis­clo­sure: my sis­ter is the chore­o­g­ra­ph­er.