1970’s – The Expansion
The 60’s had seen massive change throughout the world, surely “the dawning of the age of Aquarius”, and the children of those who had fought in World War Two were all about peace and love. Liberation was the key word and it was no coincidence that Shona brought in the new decade with a ballet of this title. Dunedin Dance Theatre had gone from strength to strength and now felt emboldened to tour, not just in Otago and Southland, but through New Zealand.
Liberation (1970)
One day, the Minister of Wakari Union Church suggested I help him with a group of leather-bikies who had surprised him by arriving at his church on thundering motorbikes. He asked me if I thought dance introduced into the service might help them retain their interest? I suggested my ballet Liberation, which covered subjects likely to be relevant to the lives of the gang…
It dealt with protesters (who oppose the establishment) flower people (who preach love not war) drug addicts (who resort to escapism) the hungry (who demand freedom from starvation) and the glorification of war… Infected by the passion and energy of the dancers, the bikies later joined them in spontaneous dance down the aisles.
Leap of Faith, pg181-182
Prodigal Daughter (1971)
In 1971, St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral in Dunedin was about to consecrate their newly acquired chancel. The Dean was keen to add dance to the liturgies plan for the special service, and delighted in my suggestion for a ballet I wished to choreograph. The Prodigal Daughter was a gender switch from the well known parable of The Prodigal Son, reset to match the growing trend of daughters leaving home – and I wonder now if The Prodigal Daughter may not have been the first feminist ballet seen in New Zealand?
Leap of Faith, pg181
Although these works were initially created for and performed in churches and cathedrals, Dunedin Dance Theatre was also performing entire programmes in theatres – The Globe, The Playhouse, and when it had been established, The Fortune Professional Theatre. The Feast of Fools at The Playhouse was a typical programme, including as it did earlier works like Hunger, political statements like Pollution, as well as Filipino Dances that Shona had brought back from her time as a guest professor in the Philippines, some pieces devised by members of the company, and a spontaneous improvised response to the zeitgeist, called simply, Happening.
I did not divide my dances into sacred or secular. The dances we performed in theatres, or at conferences, in hospitals, prisons or in the street were so often concerned with social or philosophical issues that they fitted either category.
Leap of Faith, pg182
The Metaphysical Dances (aka “Two Philosophic Dances”) (1972)
The Metaphysical Dances were created for the Ecumenical Youth Conferences held throughout New Zealand and South-East Asia, which reached their height of popularity in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. Shona was consistently invited to be the Dance Advisor at these conferences.
The dance need not be specifically religious, but should tend more to the ethical and the social. Let it be a mirror of our time pointing out social evils, if you like, but at all costs identifying itself with the people of today.
Lord of the Dance, 21
Secular City (1973)
Secular City follows the adventures of Johnny, who has to battle the forces of a heartless, hostile city, in search of spiritual meaning. This is one of Shona’s full length ballets.
The 1976 Programme
On Freedom (1974)
If you make a revolution, make it for fun,
don’t make it in ghastly seriousness,
don’t do it in deadly earnest,
do it for fun.Don’t do it because you hate people,
do it just to spit in their eye.Don’t do it for the money,
do it and be damned to the money.Don’t do it for equality,
do it because we’ve got too much equality
and it would be fun to upset the apple-cart
and see which way the apples would go a-rolling.Don’t do it for the working classes.
Do it so that we can all of us be little aristocracies on our own
and kick our heels like jolly escaped asses.Don’t do it, anyhow, for international Labour.
D. H. Lawrence
Labour is the one thing a man has had too much of.
Let’s abolish labour, let’s have done with labouring!
Work can be fun, and men can enjoy it; then it’s not labour.
Let’s have it so! Let’s make a revolution for fun!
Historic Suite (1975)
Various musical groups in the city gave Shona the chance to collaborate, recreating historical dances; sometimes set pieces and courtly dances such as pavanes and galliards, and sometimes freer compositions based on the work of painters such as Breughel.
In the 1976 programme, the Historic Suite was listed as The Chanticleer Consort, as that was the music group that played live alongside the dancers.
Lest You Are My Enemy (aka “Masks”) (1976)
The solo for Jan Bolwell was created in collaboration with DDT’s long-time wonderful photographer Michael de Hamel. His photographs of Jan, projected onto the back wall, formed a contrast or “mask” with the true personality shown in the dance. The music was especially composed by Gillian Bibby, with Yeats’ words spoken by Terry MacTavish.
Put off that mask of burning gold
With emerald eyes.’
‘O no, my dear, you make so bold
To find if hearts be wild and wise,
And yet not cold.’‘I would but find what’s there to find,
Love or deceit.’
‘It was the mask engaged your mind,
And after set your heart to beat,
Not what’s behind.’‘But lest you are my enemy,
William Butler Yeats
I must enquire.’
‘O no, my dear, let all that be;
What matter, so there is but fire
In you, in me?’
Klee Sketches (Jan Bolwell, 1976)
One of the first of Shona’s dancers to be offered a chance to choreograph her own work in a Dunedin Dance Theatre programme was Jan Bolwell. Her Klee Sketches, inspired by the visual-structural elements of both Paul Klee, the Painter, and Gunther Schuller, the Composer, into a third element – kinetic.
Flight (1976)
Shona in her travels had taped authentic tribal music wherever she could and authentic African drumming seemed the perfect exhilarating accompaniment for Flight.
My heart in hiding stirred for the bird – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing.
G. M. Hopkins