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