Empty talent
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Footnote’s Jesse Wikiriwhi and Sarah Knox in MTYLAND. Photo: Dean Zillwood.
CLAIRE O’Neil cried after watching a rehearsal of her own dance production.
The Brussels based New Zealand born choreographer has returned home for a few short weeks to watch her baby be compellingly adapted for the big stage at the upcoming New Zealand International Arts Festival.
O’Neil’s award-winning MTYLAND enjoyed a successful run at Footnote Dance’s 2008 Forte Season.
This year, the multi-faceted production that explores ideas about space, chaos and calm is “bigger, better, faster, stronger” than the first.
Fascinated by the poetic writing of Sun Tzu’s sixth century BC book The Art of War, O’Neil took the 36 military strategies outlined in it and used them as the chapters of the production.
But while The Art of War outlines how to “confuse people in order to go in for the kill”, MTYLAND is not morbid.
“For me, it’s positive. It’s the way we can be open and receptive. We empty ourselves out to be ready to receive and react. It’s always our choice to go towards conflict or harmony,” says O’Neil.
When I ask her about the tears, it becomes obvious the dance and all its intense and frantic emotions talk to her on a level more than just an interesting book.
“I think I went through a process in Brussels where I was lost and I didn’t know where to place myself,” O’Neil admits. “But somehow, possibly through being there for 10 years, I understand myself even more. When you know yourself, you can empty yourself.”
The emptiness in the production is shown through the barren stage that has only a single prop to indicate a change in chapter. But more, it’s in the characters, and the rawness of their performance.
A Footnote dancer tells me it’s because the performances are real. Each of the dancers/actors use their own insecurities and vulnerabilities to unsettle the audience, and leave them unsure of what to do.
Laughing at one dancer’s attempt to claim the stage as his own and get rid of the other characters turns into uncertain giggles when he tells the audience to leave as well, and then shock when he breaks down and screams at us to “F*** off”.
O’Neil appreciates that the actions unsettle – she wanted it that way. She says it’s more than just a contemporary dance because it also incorporates song and spoken word.
“I knew it wasn’t strictly dance work, but my gut feels song and text as well. MTYLAND came at a time when I needed to be daring,” she says.
And her students appreciate it. One tells me how lucky we are to have her in New Zealand at the moment, and dreads her going back to Brussels.
O’Neil says Brussels provides a working environment and opportunities that she simply wouldn’t be able to have here.
“But hopefully by the end of next year I’ll move back here [for good],” she says. “After 10 years, I feel the journey has taken its toll and I’m ready for something new.”
O’Neil also wants her 18-month old daughter to grow up Kiwi and surrounded by her family.
She hints she might also cajole some of her artistic friends to join her and add to New Zealand’s growing contemporary dance culture.
“It’s a little bit scary to come back. I think ‘how will I survive?’ That’s my challenge,” O’Neil finishes says a laugh.
I think back to the gaggle of teenagers, part of a youth theatre group, that also came to watch the rehearsal.
After MTYLAND finished, they looked at the exhausted performers with awe. They were thinking, “In 10 years, I could be you”.
Based on that, New Zealand will be blessed to have the choreographer back.
MTYLAND, Soundings
Theatre, Te Papa, 6pm, 27 & 28 February and 7.30pm, March 1.
Sophie Schröder.
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