Shadows and light

New Zealand choreographer Lemi Ponifasio’s “disturbing, visually beautiful” Tempest: without a body, recently performed as part of the Sydney Festival, is reviewed by The Australian’s Deborah Jones who describes Tempest as a production with a “spacious quality that gives room for reflections of many kinds, depending on one’s worldview”. “Tempest, performed by Ponifasio’s New Zealand-based company MAU, is certainly making its mark. The title evokes Shakespeare’s great play and therefore ideas of dispossession and magic. Another thread is the experience of detention and the loss of freedom after September 11; above all is the yearning for the deep sense of belonging that comes from knowing exactly who you are and where you have come from. Ponifasio creates this multiplicity of meanings in a setting of immense austerity. Ponifasio is uncompromising in his stretching of time, repetition of images and a mood of deep desolation, but surrendering to the work yielded great riches.”