Jerusalem offers final plea for peace
Jerusalem; by Mau Wahine, directed by Lemi Ponifasio Opera House, February 22 and 23 Reviewed by Lyne Pringle
Mau is a company led by director/ choreographer Lemi Ponifasio.
As one of three curators for this year’s New Zealand Festival of the Arts, he has been responsible for shaping the first week of the programme.
For his work Jerusalem, the inspiration is Concerto Al-Quds by revered Syrian poet Adonis – aka Ali Ahmad Said Esber.
The turbulent city of Jerusalem is the metaphorical setting, bringing voice to the colonised and enslaved is its intention.
Mau presented Jerusalem to a brimming Opera House, breaking new ground by inviting a fresh audience into a theatre that is usually a bastion of high European performance art. Ponifasio has refined his aesthetic – dense, uncompromising, stark, dark, and largely glacial in tempo – on the opera stages of Europe.
His work demands patience and a willingness to let go of conventional perceptions of theatre. Large portions of Jerusalem utilise te reo. No translation is offered. At one point, the words of Adonis scroll up the wall as our ears are flooded with oration in te reo. The mind spins, searching for meaning.
The women of Mau Wahine have intense focus as they embody the kaupapa of the work. They are: Rosie Te Rauawhea Belvie, Terri Crawford, Anitopapa Kopu, Manarangi Mua and Rangipo Wallace Ihakara.
Helen Todd brings her genius light to the darkness. Illuminating and sculpting space. Astonishing the eye as performers appear in a mystical fashion from the gloom, bringing depth to the stage.
The outline of a cube provides a physical representation of contested and tense space. In a cast of superb performers, Tame Iti agitates with strident whaiko¯rero [oratory], while Kawiti Waetford uses the power of his operatic voice in resounding karakia.
Rosie Te Rauawhea Belvie performs an exceptional solo, brandishing a crescent spanner as a patu. Helmi Prasetyo is an Indonesian artist who surprises with his primal regression.
The sound track is wrestled into shape by Chris Ward. It hovers constantly on the edges of perception with an astonishing multitude of sounds. At one point, chants from the inhabitants of Wuhan in enforced quarantine are juxtaposed against excerpts from Uighur folk music.
Jerusalem is comprised of disparate elements, some taken from a well-honed library of preexisting vocabulary. While they are placed carefully next to each other, as a whole it lacks coherency.
The final scene is a plea for solidarity and peace to the consolatory sounds of the Kiribati Otahuhu Choir.