[“Just Fxcking Delicious”]
Introduced by Auckland Delight and Similar Similar However Totally different, and produced by Izzy, this Delight version of Freya Daly Sadgrove’s Present Ponies is a riot of expertise. That is poetry dialled to 11.
The stacked line-up options performances from Emma Barnes, Venessa Mei Crofskey, Sam Duckor-Jones, Freya Daly Sadgrove, Ruby Solly, Chris Tse, Rebecca Hawkes, Dan Goodwin, and essa could ranapiri. The poets are supported by a number of musicians, dancers, and performers together with Christine Brooks and Liv Corridor, the sound design of Oliver Devlin, dancers Andre Lauron and Al-Gervahn Lisimoni, drummer Callum Passells, dancers Hayley Tekahika and Lara Chuo, the sound design of Eamonn Marra. The multitalented Ruby Solly helps each her personal efficiency and essa could ranapiri’s with taonga pūoro.
With such a wide range of performances not all the shifts in tempo and tone are straightforward to navigate however the present is hosted by the elegant Hugo Grrrl, who, garbed in pearlescent sequins and silver jodhpurs, sparkles because the night’s grasp of ceremonies. Tasked with each whipping the viewers right into a frenzy equal to the popstar standing of the poets and itemizing the performers’ many achievements, honours, and publications, Hugo Grrrl is not only a facilitator however a information to the vary of performances types and these transitions are largely efficiently smoothed by by Hugo Grrrl’s fast wit and heat crowd work.
Emma Barnes opens the present, flanked by Christine Brooks and Liv Corridor. Barnes is clad in a flowing, floaty garment, a cloud of chiffons and organza, pink-tinged just like the daybreak on the horizon. Shifting between singular voice and the refrain, Barnes meditates on house and the physique, on taking over house, and on the facility present in expansiveness. The voices of the three performers, by no means fairly in unison, lap over one another in echoing waves producing an aural grandiosity hardly ever heard.
Dressed for the weather in mini skirt and spectacular heels ( these components being youthful late nights) Venessa Mei Crofskey transports the viewers to chilly Ōtepoti Dunedin and even colder Pōneke providing a mix of defiance, perception, and humour to the sound of Oliver Devlin’s musical efforts.
Sam Druckor-Jones, a imaginative and prescient in layers of child pink voile, is joined by dancers Andre Lauron and Al-Gervahn Lisimoni. The poem is an ouroboros of introductions, a round collection of self-constructions. Sections of the poem are learn from what look to be repurposed image books, tufts of yellow and purple tulle sprout from them in flames. On the finish of the efficiency all of them lie on the ground in a burning pile. The stage supervisor sweeps them off stage with a big broom. There’s something deeply humorous, and but poignant on this clean-up publish the method of invention.
Freya Daly Sadgrove brings the get together with a forceful, excessive power, beat pushed efficiency with the assist of Callum Passells. It’s so electrifying it in all probability wants an extended transition interval earlier than the following act to permit the pent up power to dissipate a bit.
Subsequent, Ruby Solly, poet and taonga pūoro practitioner, weaves her spoken voice with each pre-recorded taonga pūoro and stay enjoying. The product of those three threads was transportive and deeply shifting and a becoming near the primary half of the present.
Opening the second half, Chris Tse is clearly an viewers favorite, with an amazing hollering erupting each in recognition of his genuinely-earned standing because the 13th New Zealand Poet Laureate and together with his arrival on stage. He closes his act with an exhilarating demonstration of dance prowess and is supported by Andre Lauron and Al-Gervahn Lisimoni.
Rebecca Hawkes brings a bitterly humorous indictment of masculine entitlement within the web age. The efficiency is enrichened by the presence of Hayley Tekahika and Lara Chuo, geared up as they’re with purple and black gamer chairs and sequined fedoras.
Dan Goodwin affords an impassioned and emotive assertion of selfhood as a non-binary individual. Goodwin speaks with all of their being, the efficiency is extremely visceral and little doubt resulted in additional than simply Hugo Grrrl’s self-professed teary eye. Eamonn Marra produced the sound for this efficiency.
When the present attracts in direction of the tip, essa could ranapiri closes with a suitably stirring studying of a bit that includes Echidna of their acclaimed 2022 assortment Echidna. They’re accompanied by Ruby Solly and the mixture of ranapiri’s unfolding narrative with the repeated chorus of “Echidna, Echidna, Echidna” and Solly’s musical punctuation of the silence between spoken phrases shifts the temper to one in every of hungry statement. The viewers hangs off every picture, every repetition. It’s a highly effective piece to shut with.
This at occasions provocative, usually joyous, and massively absorbing expertise cements the Present Ponies mission as a crown jewel in Aotearoa’s poetry scene. As Hugo Grrrl proclaimed, it’s “simply fxcking scrumptious”.
Show Ponies performs Basement Theatre 25th of February 2023.
This overview is a part of the Auckland Delight Evaluation Undertaking – a collaborative mission between 4 native publications (The Pantograph Punch, Bad Apple Gay, Rat World and Theatre Scenes) to offer extra important discourse round queer theatre and efficiency work. We shall be reviewing a variety of exhibits all through the month of Delight – so hold a glance out and go assist our native queer performers!
