Black Grace melds modern dance with Pacific Islander traditions

Choreographer Neil Ieremia grew up listening to his mother sing Samoan songs, learning the alphabet from catchy 'Sesame Street' tunes and studying ballet at the Auckland Performing Arts School. And then there was his neighborhood, which teemed with arts practices ranging from hula to breakdancing, hip-hop to martial arts. Black Grace, the New Zealand-based company Ieremia founded, is definitely a modern dance company, but the approach to modern dance doesn't look much like anything Martha Graham or even Ieremia's fellow New Zealander modern dance choreographers might make. Austin audiences will reckon with modern dance anew when Texas Performing Arts presents Black Grace on Saturday at Bass Concert Hall.

Ieremia says that creating dance from New Zealand's rich m?lange of Pacific Islander and Western cultures helped him make sense of being of Western Samoan descent but born in New Zealand. (Western Samoa, now known as just Samoa, is a separate nation from the U.S. Territory of American Samoa.)

'For a long time, I didn't feel at home in Western Samoa or in New Zealand,' says Ieremia. 'I always felt there was a strange, unsettled part of me. It took time for me to understand what my culture is and that cultures can move and change.'

Ieremia says he hopes audiences will understand that just because he looks to Pacific Islander culture for inspiration does not make his choreography or his company a traditional arts group.

'We're not here doing traditional dances from our indigenous culture,' he says. 'The dance that I make pulls from Pacific and contemporary dance. I'm not contemporizing Pacific dance."

Black Grace's commitment to expanding the boundaries of modern dance held strong appeal for Texas Performing Arts director Kathy Panoff. She added Black Grace to Texas Performing Arts' season as one of her first acts after being named director last spring.

'The older generations of modern dance choreographers are gone — Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham,' says Panoff. 'The form is going to be steered into a new generation. We want to be part of that.'

Fusing Pacific Islander ideas and traditions with modern dance produces a wide range of work. The Austin program represents the company's growth over its 15-year existence.

'Minoi,' one of Ieremia's first pieces, combines his childhood memories of Samoan lullabies and 'Sesame Street' singsongs. Created for the company's men (the company was all-male for eight years but now includes female guest artists), 'Minoi' uses the vocabulary of Samoan slap dance. Ieremia compares slap dance to what athletes might do before competition — hitting themselves to psych themselves up. The difference is that as dancers perform slap dance, the sound of bodies hitting evolves into complex rhythms, forming harmonies to the men's melodic singing.

All of Black Grace's repertory offers lessons in Pacific Islander culture, but 'Gathering Clouds,' the piece that closes this weekend's program, directly responds to ignorance regarding Pacific immigrants in New Zealand. In 2008, Greg Clydesdale, an economist at New Zealand's Massey University, published a paper arguing that Pacific migrants caused a 'drain on the economy' in New Zealand, due to 'poor educational attainment, crime rates, poor education and low employment.'

Ieremia remembers the outcry over Clydesdale's accusations, saying, 'This paper was printed on the front page of one of the leading newspapers back home, and it caused a lot of pain to the Pacific Island community. When I read it, I was really hurt and really angry.'

Clydesdale's claims seemed so audacious that the Human Rights Commission investigated his work, eventually publishing a response that revealed research flaws, including the use of out-of-date data.

Outraged, Ieremia researched Clydesdale's findings, too, and decided to make 'Gathering Clouds.'

'He (Clydesdale) was so focused on all the negative aspects of Pacific Islanders in New Zealand,' says Ieremia. 'I'm not saying that Pacific Island culture is beyond reproach, but I do believe the culture is very, very rich. I wanted to bring out our positive aspects: the importance of family, the great work ethic we have, our sense of humor and our love of dance and music to tell stories."

These stories seem to resonate strongly with American audiences. Black Grace has enjoyed huge success in the U.S. For the company's American premiere at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival in 2004, the festival added extra performances to accommodate ticket demand.

Panoff hopes Black Grace's show will be one step toward increasing Texas Performing Arts' dance audience. Not having quite the right venues (Bass is too big; Hogg is too small and needs renovating) and small audiences have kept Texas Performing Arts from presenting dance companies for more than one-night-only gigs recently.

'I think a modern dance audience is an audience that you have to build,' says Panoff. 'If any community can embrace modern dance, it's this community. This is a community that seems to say, "I'll try it," so we're trying to make dance affordable so they can.'

Black Grace

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Bass Concert Hall, UT campus, 23rd Street and Robert Dedman Drive

Cost: $26-$38

Info: 477-6060, www.texasperformingarts.org