The Pōtaka Nautilus project is a multi-modal dance and sound experience designed for international presentations in Prague, Pamplona, and on the web. With a green light from Creative New Zealand's Digital Global New Work Fund, this project will engage audiences through the synthesis of digital dance film, webcast streaming, VR/AR, contemporary music, taonga pūoro, harakeke weaving and 3D printed sculpture.
Good Company Arts completed arts council funded research with music and dance film wānanga during 2022. The recorded material resulted in exciting choreographic and digital creation, which concurrently supported the development of new music for cello, electronics and taonga pūoro. The materials gathered from this process have established a beautiful collection of digital assets, now being further refined and completed to meet invites and partnership with Prague Quadrennial, Festival After Cage Pamplona, and digital art nexus, Niio.art.
In nature spirals are everywhere from shells to the movement of electrons, from fingerprints to the shape of hurricanes, from the vortex of a whirlpool to the flight of birds of prey. In many ancient cultures the spiral depicts a path that leads the soul to evolve towards enlightened knowledge. Spirals often appear engraved on the stone of the monuments that were illuminated during the solstice and the equinox. This ancient symbol unites cultures and peoples all over the world, from the Northern Europe of the ancient Celts to South America, from Africa to the Mediterranean and throughout Asia and the Pacific. The spiral is a feminine symbol linking to the generative force of the universe and to the mystery of birth. The concentric rings that expand from a central point to the outside are also a symbol of growth and rebirth. For Pōtaka Nautilus the spiral signals identity with the universe through sound and cyclic motion.
New Zealand Arts Council support is enabling Good Company Arts to complete and deliver this digital project for NZPQ23, Festival After Cage, and virtually with Niio. The team comprises Gillian Karawe Whitehead (classical and taonga pūoro music composer), Ariana Tikao and Alistair Fraser (taonga pūoro soloists), Paul Mitchell (cellist), Amit Noy, Christina Guieb, Airu Matsuda and Samara Reweti (dancer-choreographers), supported by Jac Grenfell (electronic sound-motion graphics-VR), Patxi Araujo (VFX), Stuart Foster (spatial light design), Kahu Collective (harakeke weavers), and creative producer Donnine Harrison with Daniel Belton (director-designer-film maker).
For Pōtaka Nautilus the shell is representative of a safe haven, a place for shelter as Earth’s rapidly shifting environmental conditions affect everyone and everything. This project aims to create a virtual zone ‘eye of the storm’, where we can reflect on global change facing us collectively, with the loss of habitable lands being a significant factor. Pacific voices are forefront in this project as climate change issues are particularly acute for island nations.
