Overview
Self-taught Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio and his internationally acclaimed company Mau return to Carriageworks with the Australian premiere of Stones in Her Mouth.
Featuring an ensemble of ten Maori women, the piece is inspired by the strong Maori tradition of women authoring poetry and chant. Incorporating Maori language, spirituality, ceremony and genealogy, it explores themes of female oppression, silence, outrage and resilience.
Mau has become recognised internationally for their beautiful, unnerving and hypnotic creations grounded in native Pacific cultures and their ancestral, elemental worlds. Stones in Her Mouth — combining choral work, dance and oratory — looks set to continue the company's habit of sidestepping traditional expectations, refusing to sit neatly within categories of 'theatre' or 'dance' and instead striving to reach a near-spiritual plane through performance.
Ponifasio, who was once a philosophy student before he formed his "company of people", told the Australian, "I try to activate the space. To create a sort of cosmological space where we can somehow realise that we are part of the whole process of earth."
To get a little taster of what they do, watch this video of Mau's Carriageworks performance of Birds with Skymirrors.
Stones in Her Mouth is on at Carriageworks from May 28 to June 31. Tickets are $35 from here, but thanks to Carriageworks, we have four double passes to the Thursday, May 29, performance to give away. To be in the running, subscribe to the Concrete Playground newsletter (if you haven't already), then email win.sydney@concreteplayground.com.au with your name and address.