These were pos­si­bly my most antic­i­pat­ed shows of this year’s Fringe.  FA’AAFA is pre­sent­ed by FAFSWAG, an Auck­land based col­lec­tive of artists who cel­e­brate LGBTQ Pacif­ic Islander cul­ture. I’ve seen the pho­tos, watched the inter­ac­tive doc­u­men­tary, and read about their work so I was excit­ed to see them in this year’s Fringe. Big J Stylez stars Jacob Dom­bros­ki. It’s pre­sent­ed by Every­body Cool Lives Here a Welling­ton based com­pa­ny who aim ‘to pro­duce art that reflects Aotearoa’s unique and diverse voice’ I’d seen Dom­bros­ki in one of their pre­vi­ous shows and since he’s a per­former who’s not afraid to con­nect with the audi­ence I was real­ly inter­est­ed to see what he’d do with a solo project.

Friends, I was not dis­ap­point­ed.

FA’AAFA explores the con­cept of ‘exist­ing in dual­i­ty’, nei­ther one or the oth­er but both. Under­pinned by a Samoan world view it uses move­ment, dance, visu­al pro­jec­tion, and cos­tume, to shift our per­cep­tion to an ele­men­tal lev­el. Time and space were dis­tort­ed as per­form­ers Falen­cie Fil­ipo, Moe Laga, Joey Tinai & Pati Solomona Tyrell glide through the air (or water or fire or stone) with undu­lat­ing arms, rip­pling fin­gers and pre­cise con­trol. It was like a med­i­ta­tion but rather than qui­et­ing the mind it acti­vat­ed it. Invok­ing the gods, the ances­tors, and the rela­tion­ship between audi­ence and per­form­ers I gave up the pre­tence of tak­ing notes and instead watched, entranced. A strong visu­al aes­thet­ic from direc­tor Pati Solomona Tyrell meant this show was gor­geous as well as deeply ground­ed.

(This per­for­mance includes the poem ‘My Body Is’ by award win­ning Samoa/New Zealand poet Tusi­a­ta Avia  who has her own show Wild Dogs Under My Skirt on at the Han­nah Play­house as part of the New Zealand Fes­ti­val to 11 March 2018)

  • FA’AAFA on at BATS The­atre as part of the NZ Fringe Fes­ti­val to 9 March 2018

After a breath­less fast walk through the rain I got my first look at Te Aua­ha, the new space in Dixon street. There’s a love­ly con­tem­po­rary waharoa stretch­ing up in the dou­ble height foy­er invit­ing us in. In Big J Stylez, Dom­bros­ki invites us to meet his whā­nau — his sin­gle Mum, his lit­tle broth­er, and Tiger, a soft toy/friend from child­hood. Alter­nat­ing dance with mono­logue he shows us some of the for­ma­tive episodes in his child­hood. We cheer, and laugh and go very qui­et when he describes some of the neg­a­tive atti­tudes peo­ple have towards him because he hap­pened to be born with Down syn­drome. (Emerg­ing con­tem­po­rary dancer/choreographer Brae­dyn Togi has sup­port­ed Dom­bros­ki with some of the move­ment. The dance which express­es his rage and sor­row was one of the most arrest­ing pieces I’ve seen in a while.) Per­for­mance design by Rowan Pierce includes all encom­pass­ing visu­al pro­jec­tion and direc­tion by Rose Kirkup ensures that the visu­als and action on stage work in har­mo­ny.

  • Big J Stylez on at Te Aua­ha as part of the NZ Fringe Fes­ti­val to 10 March 2018