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.