TWO - Tempo Dance Festival, Te Rerenga o Tere 2024

“My thoughts about partnering and gender-conventions in ballet are met when two male dancers in white, sparkling costumes enter stage for TWO, choreographed by Shaun Kelly. Exploring “the fleeting moments where two birds’ cross paths” this work engages a spacious and stripped back vocabulary in which gentle ‘birdlike’ mannerisms emerge out of soaring, sky-like arcs and turns of movement. I enjoy the simple beauty in this work; how the dancers locomote through space, draw-up into levity, and extend their limbs like unfurling wings. The clarity and fluidity of their movement is mesmerizing, and their partnering is fluid and reflective. A shift of lighting at the end of this work, in which the dancers perform almost moon-walking movements, before exiting stage, is quirky in such a gentle and understated way that it makes me smile. I appreciate where this piece sits in the programme – the way its spaciousness does not emote ‘at’ the audience but provides room for reflection and time to process with it. It makes me think of the ways we decompress and re-sync with reality when observing nature.”

Reviewed by Rose Tapsell