Commissioned work
These are examples of works both independently made by kelly Nash with dance artist Nancy Wijohn and commissioned by Atamira dance company. Kelly’s website
ATAMIRA is a work that ruminates on identity, death, darkness and light. It delves into the spirit realm and examines the suffering and finality inherent in the body’s passing. The work slowly reveals layers of space within a cavernous warehouse, emphasising the surprising depth to an unfolding range of experiences depicting a journey towards death.
TIPU was performed in a the dark intimate vault theatre as part of Tempo Dance Festival. Tipu is an imaginative performance exploring how new life, death and rebirth, intimately connects us all. The interactions of all four performers - mother, baby and the two dancers - demonstrate a captivating and an honest performance that is truely emotive and engrossing in music and movement.
MĀ looks in depth at the Maori myth of the demi-god Maui and his efforts to gain eternal life by re-entering the vagina of the goddess Hine Nui Te Po (goddess of death). The re-telling questions patriarchal hierarchy, sexism and speciesism which continue to perpetuate the stories we all tell.
AHUA/LICK MY PAST captures through episodes and vignettes a rich lexicon of different movement stories and female partnerships. Two women claim the stage and shape it to their own experiences of the world, the cosmos and inner lives together.
BODY I(S)LAND, real time healing, reflective conversations, bodies in perpetual impact pathways, equalising each other's internal pressure, touch triggered memories and supporting each other's change. This work utilises the principles and beliefs of a physical hands on body method, to visit and understand an array of relationships and scenarios presented through the body’s own story in dance.
Concept and Direction: Kelly Nash
Collaborators and performers:
Nancy Wijohn,Daniel Cooper,Sean MacDonald, Bianca Hyslop,Imogen Tapara,Byrdie Colquhoun,Rosie Tapsell,Rowan Pierce,Hannah Tasker-Poland,Sean MacDonald,Milly Kimberly Grant,Atalya Loveridge,Te Whakanoa Sage
Designers,photographers,contributors:
Eden Mullholland,Louise Potiki Byrant,Poppy Serano,Tui Matira Ranapiri-Ransfield, Megan Smith, Osborne Shiwan, Matt Gillanders,Julie Zhu,Charles Howell,Jinki Cambronero, John McDermont
What People Are Saying
The climactic penultimate episode is extremely powerful theatrically, as Hyslop ensconced in large plastic ball, rolls around the stage, becoming drenched with water before the ball collapses and she makes her escape. It could be read as the last throes of death, as shortly afterwards she and the cast start moving through a tunnel towards a distant ambient light while a crinkled silver sheet remains downstage centre, enfolded in the shape of a corpse
— Jenny Stevenson
Lick My Past has all the elements of an accessible contemporary work – it doesn’t ask too much of the audience and allows breathing room for those more serious moments with licks of comedic relief.
Leah Maclean
A voiceover asked us to consider the absurdity of the whole ‘I’ in favour of the innumerable I/eyes of our anatomical existence: the ‘I’ of my left patella, or the ‘eye’ of the soles of my feet. All my innumerable ‘I/eyes’ loved this dance.
— Amit Noy
Their performance was truly emotive and I was completely engrossed in the music and movement.The interactions of all four performers - mother, baby and the two dancers - demonstrated a captivating and honest story of new life, death and rebirth
-Summer Aykroyd
Kelly Nash's Ma is excitingly different. She looks in depth at the Maori myth of the demi-god Maui and his efforts to gain eternal life by re-entering the vagina of the goddess Hine Nui Te Po (goddess of death). Her re-telling questions patriarchal hierarchy, sexism and speciesism which continue to perpetuate the stories we all tell. At times, it is fiercely disturbing
- Ann Hunt
