Living up to its name: Belle – a performance of air
The first season of Belle – a performance of air was thwarted by Covid. Thankfully the work returns to the Aotearoa NZ Festival in 2024.
It was initially presented to an invited audience in an immersive warehouse setting. This iteration occurs in the opulent St James Theatre. It is a different experience for the audience but equally engaging.
The work is aptly named, the air does indeed ‘perform’. Light invades the auditorium, a lot of haze is used to create substance, so that illuminated beams can sculpt the normally invisible atmosphere – what effect on the lungs – but the results are wonderous, other worldly.
In one scene Brydie Colquhoun stands strident on top of a moving structure, like the captain of a waka navigating the seas. Equally assured, Malia Johnston takes the helm of this substantial production as director and producer. She knows how to build a robust and well-functioning crew through creativity and collaboration – cause for celebration.
She’s like an alchemist mixing and integrating elements to conjure magic: light, sound, projection, aerialists and dancers. The work seems to exist on a metaphysical plane. It reinforces how theatre can make the viewer gasp and transport them into a state of wonder.
Production elements resonate with dignity, power and mature artistry at the highest level. Whilst not overtly political or message driven, with the foregrounding of female performers as powerful and skilful leaders, the collaborative nature of this company and naming the work after a dragon fly – libellule, a symbol of transformation – this offering from Johnston’s company Movement of the Human is an uplifting statement.
Johnston’s long-time partners bring their own brand of genius to the mix.
Rowan Pierce is the production designer (set, lighting, AV and spatial), transforming the space with inventive projections and gossamer thin beams of light that evoke the wings of a dragonfly. He creates a surprising realm that is solid yet permeable, as space shimmers with mystery and intrigue.
Eden Mulholland composes alongside his brother Jol Mulholland – it is an awesome soundscape, by turns soothing, surprising, unsettling, gravitational, chest rattling and atmospherically vibrant. Anita Clark also collaborates sonically and performs live with vocals and violin.
Jenny Ritchie is the aerial performance director, apparatus designer and costume designer. Her contribution to the whole is significant.
Aerial specialists: Imogen Stone, Ellyce Bisson, Rosita Hendry and Katelyn Reed are in control of their specialist equipment, miraculously appearing and disappearing, defying gravity or spinning with such ferocious intensity that the human form blurs. They are supported by expert riggers Tom Hoyle, Anthony Goodwin and Nic Balkum.
By turns flitting pīwakawaka, majestic goddesses enacting rituals and sculpted creatures flying through space, impossibly twisting and leaping, the dance specialists are: Brydie Colquhoun, Jemima Smith, Anu Khapung, Nadiyah Akbar, and Aleeya McFadyen-Rew.
All are backed by the meticulous production crew: Rose McGrannaghan, Gina Heidekruger and Michael Lyell-O'Reilly.
These components of Belle – a performance of air, don’t congregate so successfully by chance. The work arises through intelligence, sharp aesthetics, a deep inquiry into the nature of theatre, an understanding of how to move people, what makes people move and how people can work together for a common good.
At the end the applauding audience rise to their feet, enchanted by this magnificent performance. It is a must see performance.
– Belle – a performance of air is at St James Theatre from March 14-17 as part of the Aotearoa NZ Festival of the Arts