THE latest Footnote Forte series is based around the theme of the environments we find ourselves in.
One choreographer has chosen to meld this with an exploration of relationships, so we thought we’d follow suit. There are three people involved and two love stories. But it’s not a love triangle. The first love story is platonic.
Malia Johnston is a contemporary dance choreographer. She met singer, guitarist and songwriter for the band Motocade Eden Mulholland while they were both at UNITEC in Auckland and the connection was instant.
For more than a decade Johnston and Mulholland have been collaborators and co-conspirators. Mulholland has always made the music for Johnston’s contemporary dance pieces and they’ve developed what they both separately refer to as “a great intuition” for what the other requires.
With all this love and respect between the two you’d be forgiven for thinking there was no room for any more. Enter Erryne Gleeson.
Gleeson was dancing in one of Johnston’s pieces a few years back. Mulholland saw her performing a jump and fell in love.
Mulholland says his first thought was “holy shit, that’s her”. He knows it’s cheesy, but it’s true.
“I never thought it’d happen to me, but I knew she was the one the moment I saw her – without a shadow of a doubt.” Lucky for Mulholland, the feeling was mutual from early on, although he “wasn’t going to let it go if that wasn’t the case”.
“I wouldn’t take no for an answer,” he says.
The first thing Mulholland did (after saying hello) was to write Gleeson a love song.
“I was going through a period in my life where I was a bit of a mess,” he says, “and meeting her just solidified what I needed to do with my life. It all changed overnight. I saw her, I went home that night, wrote a song for her, put it on a CD and handed it over.”
Together the two of them listened to the song in the Footnote dance offices. What followed (after a slightly shell-shocked cup of coffee) was a “bloody hard” long distance relationship filled with texts and calls, and last year they got married.
Mulholland has written many songs for his wife since, saying she’s “the sort of woman you want to write a song for”. It’s all starting to sound like a Hollywood romance – the hardened rock-star falls for the beautiful dancer and he turns into a great big well-behaved softie. While Mulholland sheepishly admits he watches less sci-fi and horror films and more family dramas and romantic films (“we hold hands”) – he wants me to assure you “the rest of me is still really macho”. Sure, Eden, we believe you.
Whether I Wear You, a composition by Malia and Eden is one of six in the travelling Footnote Forte 2010 season October 11 and 18.