Throwing out the rule book
Alan Perrott meets Black Grace’s Neil Ieremia, a man still enjoying being the ‘wrong guy in the wrong job’.
For Black Grace to still be going strong after 22 years in a country like ours is nothing short of remarkable. But then you could argue it exists simply because Neil Ieremia does.
Take a look at their website, you’ll find no hall of fame of dancers past or performer portraits, it’s all Ieremia, chief executive, artistic director, founder, hook, line, sinker and bait.
‘‘Some in the traditional arts establishment never imagined I’d ever last this long,’’ he says, ‘‘and that’s OK, it’s the fun part. I like being the wrong guy in the wrong job, it keeps things interesting.’’
He is Black Grace and the dancers mould to his will. If they’re able. He enforces a notorious fitness regime, with no exceptions, built around regular runs from their Kingsland base to the summit of Mt Eden and back again. He used to park up there, stopwatch in hand, to make sure everyone made it on time. Now, well it’s just what you have to do to keep up.
Because physicality is a big part of what sets Black Grace apart. Ieremia wants the audience to see the effort, smell the sweat and – maybe just a little – be intimidated by their power. If they have a patron saint, it’s Ieremia’s personal hero, kung fu master Bruce Lee. He has an extensive memorabilia collection including high-end figurines and enjoys discussing the great man’s ‘‘oneinch punch’’. So yeah, power with grace pretty much covers it.
A review from a recent show in Utah described the impact this way: ‘‘…the rushing from moment to moment left me feeling breathless. In those few moments of stillness when the artists were catching their breath, I caught mine too.’’
Which seems to have been the standard reaction for that tour, and Ieremia’s still buzzing from it. Three months on the road and only 10 shows in big venues: ‘‘We thought we’d made it the first time we went… about 15 years ago? Seven or nine shows a week then too, that was hard. This time… conditions have changed.’’
It wasn’t so much the sold out venues (without exception) as the OTT standing ovations. ‘‘The response was the same from California to South Carolina; the music would stop and up they’d go, every time, it was amazing… then they’d want to meet you and talk about the work. They were genuinely interested, had an opinion and wanted to engage… you don’t really get that here.’’
Not only that, they were also met at each venue by about 20 crew with everything prepped and ready to go. With catering. As for hotels, they’d walk in and he’d go to point out some feature or other, but it was too late, everyone had their phones out shooting video. Even the touring buses were tricked out with neon lighting and Captain Kirk seats for everyone.
Unsurprisingly, it’s taken time to get their collective feet back on the ground.
This is all by Ieremia’s will. Black Grace have been touring America for years and slowly but surely building momentum to where they are now a guaranteed drawcard. And when the promoters know there are bucks to be made, well, everything’s red carpets and star treatment.
Back home, well, touring is a joy but also a money loser. For their 10th anniversary tour they tried something different and played small community halls with no pre-sales – ‘‘like an old fashioned band gig’’ – and got hate mail for their trouble from people who arrived too late to get in. Someone left in the lurch at their Matakana show ripped up their Black Grace flag and threw it into a ditch.
Hopefully there will be no repeats during their upcoming, eight-stop tour. It’ll be bigger venues and proper tickets this time and they are presenting the same show (based around As Night Falls; an attempt to offer hope in the Trump age) with the same staging as they did in America. ‘‘We’re so stoked to be able to do this, we haven’t been to places like Tauranga for five years and going to the US means we can do something like this with a degree of financial security.’’
But despite all that, the fact that Ieremia runs a dance company at all is, as mentioned, remarkable, even remarkably brave. He grew up in Cannons Creek in Porirua, a place of community and churches, with little money and limited prospects. When violence could serve as consensual recreation, life for a young fulla was physical, sporty and tribal.
But Ieremia was different, even when he tried to be the same. At 5, he was hospitalised by rheumatic fever and his guilt over his parents’ suffering steeled him to never cry and take it like a man. But six months of stoic endurance couldn’t prevent the damage to his heart. If his parents wanted to cottonball him, his school mates teased him as handicapped and for someone as smart, single-minded and unafraid as Ieremia that wasn’t going to do at all.
So he found a way. Banned from club sport, he’d dance when alone, talk his way into games of pick-up league and take on his bigger brother at boxing. Then wrestling with the local Maori kids turned him on to martial arts training and the odd lunchtime exhibition fight: ‘‘I’d felt like a failure, that I was broken and it was my fault. I wanted to prove myself to myself, because there were certain expectations growing up in Cannons Creek.’’
With his strong interest in music, fashion (he strutted around in an oversized, yellow ‘‘David Byrne’’ suit his mum made under sufferance) and the Samoan dances he learned at the local Poly(nesian) Club and you can almost retro engineer Black Grace.
But the lightbulb didn’t go off until a movement workshop run by a host from kids’ television show Spot On. ‘‘He started doing these shoulder rolls, the classic jazz warm-up. It was something I knew and I picked things up quickly. I felt smart I guess…’’
At 13, he was asked to choreograph a pirate-themed dance for his church. ‘‘It was based on the P.I. dancing I was doing, but used martial arts as well. I thought it was really cool, everyone moving in and out. If you got it wrong you’d get a punch in the face or a kick in the head. But I kind of mapped it out in my head, how everyone had to move to get from place to another place. It didn’t seem hard, I just thought it was exciting.’’
His family didn’t quite see it that way. After immigrating from Samoa, his father had given up all of his artistic aspirations to support his family. If they struggled with the idea of young Neil doing the complete opposite, dance was also a million miles from their idea of man’s work.
But not only have their views gone full circle, those who patronised his company as a cute novelty act, a cultural group with pretensions, have as well.
Black Grace now occupies a top seat at the country’s arts table, which, Ieremia being Ieremia, means it’s time to rock the boat.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’s thrown the cards in the air. Some thought he was mad to bring women into this most male of troupes, then an internal shakeup followed by a near meltdown in 2005 almost destroyed everything. It certainly ended a few longstanding friendships.
Too bad, he’s feeling positive, reckons the arrival of his fourth child has reintroduced discipline to his life and besides, he’s chaffing at the rituals of performance.
‘‘We’ve got all these venues where we are supposed to perform and where people go to consume art, but it’s time to reinvent things. Technology changes everything, so how can we use it to be more spontaneous, bring new people to dance, and be sustainable longterm? I think it’s important to throw out the script and interact with people differently. There is a risk in this and my board hates me talking like this, but I thrive on risk.
‘‘I get asked – what it’s like to be Black Grace dancer, travelling that fast and trusting you won’t be hurt? Well, it’s terrifying. You really should try it and maybe, I don’t quite know how yet, but maybe there’s a way that you can…’’
"I wanted to prove myself to myself, because there were certain expectations growing up in Cannons Creek." Neil Ieremia
The Black Grace As Night Falls national tour begins in New Plymouth on June 22 and finishes up in Tauranga on July 6. For more information, see blackgrace.co.nz