It's a good thing the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble only recently learned how to handle a poi. A ball spun rapidly by an attached rope, this traditional object used for dance by the Maori -- the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand -- is sacrosanct ("tapu" in Maori) and must not be dropped. According to the old custom, mishandling the poi is punishable by death -- quite daunting for a group of 13 American dancers new to this native artform. Luckily for them, the offender who drops a poi today only has to do 10 push-ups. And ten push-ups should be a breeze for these guys.
From March 12 to March 24 the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble went on an international tour through sunny and summery New Zealand, trading their snowboots for jandals -- which are known stateside as flip-flops. The dancers hoped to use the universal medium of dance to reach across geographic, linguistic and cultural borders and to achieve a deeper mutual understanding.
The tour was conceived by Hopkins Center faculty, ensemble director Ford Evans and Emily Cross PhD'08, who studied at the University of Otago in Dunedin from 2002 to 2003 as a U.S. Fulbright Graduate Student. When the DDE traveled south to Dunedin, New Zealand's fourth-largest city known for its raucous Otago student body, Cross gave a lecture on her recent neuroscience research into functional changes within dancers' brains as they learn complex new sequences of movements. Afterwards, the DDE performed the same dance Cross has studied in her research.
For the dancers the international tour was more than just a cultural learning experience. Traveling within a country only slightly smaller than Italy meant long stretches of time on the road during which the dancers saw famed Kiwi landscapes, which have recently doubled for Narnia and Middle-earth in Hollywood blockbusters.
The drive from the northern tip of the South Island of New Zealand to Dunedin bisects as many as a dozen different ecosystems. The dancers said they bonded significantly during these long car rides. According to Roni Nitecki '11, now that the ensemble relates better on a personal level, it also functions better as a unit on stage.
"The long hours motoring through the most spectacular scenery on earth brought us all together in a way that spending dozens of hours each week in the studio never really could have," Cross agreed.
Earlier in the tour, high school"aged Maori dancers demonstrated poi in the Wellington suburb of Lower Hutt. Poi is one of several types of performance arts associated with the kapa haka, or Maori cultural dance. A traditional kapa haka performance will include a suite of song and dance incorporating rhythmic footwork and gestures of the face, arms and hands. The Dartmouth dancers also learned about the patu, a short-handled club with razored edges that was used in close-contact battles.
"It really felt like they were letting us into a part of themselves by showing us something so important to their cultural heritage," Nitecki said. "I didn't see this as an educational tour coming in, but it was very clear from the start that this was going to be a cultural exchange."
The collaboration took place in the Waiwhetu Marae, a ceremonial space used for religious and social purposes. The dancers slept on mats inside the marae.
"The marae was very beautiful, very intricately carved with tiki heads," Fiona Lundie '09 said. "There was this beautiful weaving on the inside of the wall, and every square of the pillar was carved."
In exchange, the ensemble introduced the Maori students to contemporary American dance. The dancers performed pieces originally choreographed by fundamental American modern dancers of the last century. One of those luminaries is Laura Dean. The DDE secured special permission to use Dean's "Sky Light" (1982) thanks to Hopkins Center dance faculty member Melinda Evans, who once danced for the famed experimental choreographer. "Sky Light" is a rituatlistic and demanding twenty-five minute piece backed by a repetitive drum beat.
The ensemble also performed Yvonne Rainer's "Chair/Pillow Dance," a postmodern piece set to the music of anti-folk artist Regina Spektor; Twyla Tharp's "Torelli," an improvised assemblage of eight memorized phrases, and the ensemble's own "Complexities." Additionally, the tour included performances in Kaikoura and an outdoor concert in Wellington.
Having the chance to perform so many times was especially meaningful for the group, which generally only performs twice per year at Dartmouth. "Our dances suddenly came to life on stage," Nitecki said. "There was a lot of adrenaline and a lot of cooperation. We were a group, not just individual dancers"
Lundie said it was "incredible" to be able to perform multiple times. "You can pour your heart and soul into dancing in the studio, but there's nothing like performing," she said.
