When your company enters the international dance scene with something that looks different, you risk being defined solely by those qualities.
For the founder of New Zealand’s Black Grace, an all-male company blending contemporary dance with traditional Samoan and Maori movement, that over-simplification particularly rankled when the company almost foundered in 2005, after a decade. Pressure had increased as the group’s star rose, and a rash of dancers resigned when Black Grace returned to New Zealand after the 10th- anniversary-season international tour.
“Where I think it started to unravel — I took some offence to the way we were portrayed,” said artistic director and founder Neil Ieremia in an interview. “People are able to say they’re successful because they’re all-male or they’re all brown — everything other than the actual work. As an artist, I didn’t feel that way.”
It wasn’t just how the company was portrayed. Ieremia was also becoming more demanding of the dancers in Black Grace, which performs Friday in Victoria, he said. But he called depictions of the group “the pebble in the shoe.”
“It was a difficult period and everyone thought it was over,” he said. “But someone forgot to tell me and I just carried on.”
Ieremia had a lot invested in the company. He’d launched it at only 25, against the wishes of his parents — Samoan immigrants — who cried and initially wouldn’t talk to him. He convinced them with his first, autobiographical, piece.
While the Pacific Island community was excited about the company, some audience members took issue with Ieremia’s subject matter — the theme of his second piece was child abuse, for example, a response to the beating death of a young Maori boy at the hands of his father. But offending some people was the price of making quality work.
“As with art, it’s about challenging your audience,” Ieremia said.
Ieremia relaunched the company in 2007. He welcomed female dancers into the group this time — not an intentional major switch, but simply a necessity for the demands of the work.
Today, Black Grace thrives as one of New Zealand’s top performance groups. And in its 17th season, the company’s resilience has proven there’s more to it than superficial portrayals suggested early on, Ieremia said.
“I think longevity allows you a few benefits,” he said. “People realize that there’s something to the work. … It’s no longer a lucky streak.”
When the company makes its debut performance in Victoria Friday, as the final show in Dance Victoria’s season, Black Grace will present a mixed repertoire of pieces from its history. Vaka, the Polynesian word for canoe, is about survival instincts. He created the 60-minute piece for the 2004 Athens Olympics.
“If we were stuck somewhere metaphorically, what would our raft be? What would we put in it, what would we want to leave behind?” he said.
Pati Pati, which premièred in Germany in 2009, combines Samoan Sasa, or seated dancing, with traditional slap dancing.
Amata, based on the compositional structure and floor patterns on a Samoan fine woven mat, was one of the pieces Black Grace re-entered the stage with, following its near demise.
Ieremia said he doesn’t foresee any major challenges or changes on the horizon. “I’m always wanting to challenge my own thinking and challenge the company’s thinking,” he said. “I’m sure that will come.”
When: Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Royal Theatre
Tickets: $29 to $79 (plus service charges) at rmts.bc.ca or 250-386-6121.
