Described as 'dance that won't be held down' Tent draws on ideas of tension and shelter, community and displacement. Performed by a company of leading contemporary dancers, Tent is choreographer Michael Parmenter's first full-length work in ten years.

"The word 'tent' has the same root as dance (tanz) and tension, and is one of the oldest metaphors for the human body. A tent is a site of fleeting encounters, improvisations and accidental discoveries." Described as 'dance that won't be held down' Tent draws on ideas of tension and shelter, community and displacement. Performed by a company of leading contemporary dancers, Tent is choreographer Michael Parmenter's first full-length work in ten years.

"The word 'tent' has the same root as dance (tanz) and tension, and is one of the oldest metaphors for the human body. A tent is a site of fleeting encounters, improvisations and accidental discoveries.""In a period of great population dispersals, of refugee camps, detentions centers and of the forced imprisonment of terror suspects, the tent has become the image of humanity cast adrift from its traditional roots," says Parmenter.

Tent promises to have all the hallmarks of Parmenter's visionary, muscular yet spiritual aesthetic, enhanced by a new process that is intensely collaborative. Over the past three years, with the support of the Creative New Zealand Choreographic Fellowship, Parmenter has initiated a radical shift in his choreographic practice, developing an entirely new way of working.

Parmenter's new techniques place dancers in dialogue with each other; one dancer acting as provocateur, the other responding. The movements generated are filmed and reviewed so that over time a library of entirely new choreographic syntax is built up.

For Parmenter, who has spent his career to date choreographing on his own body, the approach opens new possibilities.

The development of the work was documented at the Tent Dance Project website.

The new process makes the dancers who will perform Tent an intrinsic part of the creation of the work, and each brings unique qualities and perspectives to the project.

A company of seven renowned contemporary dancers from New Zealand and Britain has been assembled to create Tent.

Former Parmenter collaborators Craig Bary (Australian Dance Theatre) and Claire Lissaman join Victoria Colombus, So You Think You Can Dance runner-up Justin Haiu, Sarah Foster, Moss Patterson (Black Grace, Atamira), Destiny Stein, and Christopher Tandy, a lead dancer with British company Diversions.

Eden Mulholland (Motorcade) will be the other key performer on stage, composing music specifically for the work, which will be performed live as part of the work. The production is designed by leading practitioners Elizabeth Whiting (costume), John Verryt (set) and Nik Janiurek (lighting).

Tent is one of three Michael Parmenter works in the Tempo festival; the other two are solo work Rhapsody, originally commissioned by NZSD for Craig Bary and performed by Florian Teatiu; and Tama Ma, a work choreographed partly by Parmenter for Taiaroa Royal and Taane Mete that premiered in April at The Living Dance Project in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.

In a choreographic career that spans more than twenty-five years, Parmenter has consistently pushed the boundaries of performance, producing some of the most important - and exhilarating - works in New Zealand dance history. From Insolent River to A Long Undressing to Jerusalem, Parmenter has inspired audiences, critics, and the dance community, with his passionate, provocative, bold and beautiful choreography.

Pitching into the wild realm between order and chaos, Tent is dance in a state of flux.

Charting the fragile and precarious space between bodies, Tent is about life when there's nothing to hold on to - except life itself.

Choreographer: Michael Parmenter
Dancers: Craig Bary, Victoria Colombus, Sarah Foster, Justin Haiu, Claire Lissaman, Moss Patterson, Christopher Tandy,
Original Music: Eden Mulholland
Design: John Verryt, Elizabeth Whiting, Nik Janiurek

Tent at Tempo in Auckland

October 13th - 18th
Maidment Theatre
University of Auckland
October 13th - 18th at 8pm
October 19th at 6pm
Cost: $45, $35
Groups (+6): $40
Book online at www.maidment.auckland.ac.nz or 09 308 2383

Image: Christopher Tandy
Photographer: John Mcdermott

Tent - a structure held aloft by tension; like pole and wires our very bones and muscles sustain our bodies against the fall. We live our lives strung between freedom and necessity, beauty and terror, memory and desire.
- Michael Parmenter

" - the vitality, musicality and sensuousness we have come to expect from Parmenter productions is still fully present in the dancing - some wonderful emblematic solos(Craig Bary, Sarah Foster, Christopher Tandy, Claire Lissaman)which are a joy to watch." New Zealand Herald

"... sequences of compelling beauty, particularly solos and duos. Craig Bary phrasing his movement to music of Bach and Sarah Foster to her own heartbeat are exceptionally memorable... The lively score composed by Eden Mulholland...set design by John Verryt and lighting by Nik Janiurek are fully and impressively integrated." Dominion Post

15/10/08