Meremere is a power­ful and mov­ing per­form­ance in which dan­cer Rod­ney Bell (Ngāti Maniapoto) brings to life his incred­ible jour­ney; ran­ging from the highs of an inter­na­tion­al per­form­ance career to the lows of home­less­ness in Amer­ica to redemp­tion in the form of a return to Aotearoa and recon­nec­tion with his Māori and artist­ic her­it­age. It opens at Circa Theatre this Fri­day.

A crit­ic­ally acclaimed dan­cer and per­former, Bell is inter­na­tion­ally renowned for his phys­ic­ally integ­rated per­form­ance and has been dan­cing pro­fes­sion­ally since 1994 when he began as a found­ing mem­ber of Touch Com­pass Dance Trust.  Bell relo­cated to Cali­for­nia in 2007 to join AXIS Dance Com­pany as prin­cip­al dan­cer.  He won numer­ous awards, includ­ing a coveted Isad­ora Duncan Dance Award in 2009.  In 2012, Bell’s life star­ted to unravel. The cata­lyst was a fire that burnt down the apart­ment block in which he was liv­ing. Bell lost everything and found it dif­fi­cult to find a new home. Then his work with AXIS ended, and lack­ing the means to come home, he fell into home­less­ness. Bell spent the next three years nav­ig­at­ing the streets of San Fran­cisco, sleep­ing on park benches and in home­less shel­ters, before – with the assist­ance of San Fran­cisco based char­ity Han­dUp – he was finally able to return to New Zea­l­and.

“It was a time of learn­ing to endure” Bell says. “You draw on super­hu­man powers when you’re in sur­viv­al mode. On the cold­est nights I’d wrap clothes around my head. I’d be able to sleep through a lot of it because I was super tired. Nego­ti­at­ing the streets is a mara­thon. You’re always mov­ing, try­ing to find essen­tials like run­ning water.”

The work power­fully lay­ers move­ment, pro­jec­ted imagery and doc­u­ment­ary foot­age to bring his stor­ies to life in an hour-long work. A beau­ti­ful, and intim­ate per­form­ance exper­i­ence that invites the audi­ence inside this unique and inspir­a­tion­al mem­oir. Meremere fea­tures live music by renowned com­poser Eden Mul­hol­land.

Per­former and cre­at­or Rod­ney Bell; Dir­ect­or Malia John­ston; In part­ner­ship with Touch Com­pass Dance Trust. Col­lab­or­at­ing Artists include, Row­an Pierce (Audio Visu­al), Tui Matira Rana­piri-Rans­field (Tik­anga, Te Reo, Mataur­anga Maori Dram­at­urg), Emma Wil­lis (Dram­at­urgy), John Verryt (Set Design), Ruby Reihana-Wilson (Light­ing), Ian Ham­mond (Graph­ic Design).

  • Meremere on at Circa Theatre 22–30 June 2018