Belle – A Performance of Air does not prepare you for the immersive visual and sonic spectacle that is in the magical realm of the Gods.
The opening show of the Auckland Arts Festival 2025 and coming from the multi-disciplinary arts company Movement of the Human (MOTH). Producer and Director of this show, Malia Johnston.
This truly is a captivating multi-media theatre experience, as you are inside and surrounded for an hour.
Once the lights go down you immediately understand that the dark is a physical force, the alter ego of light.
You strain to make out the shapes in the shadows, as they seem to materialise and disappear. Eventually you make out eight (there may be one more) shapes of the feminine anima spirit.
Was this deliberate? It is how the whole ensemble came together organically, as director Johnson comments at the end.
With the special use of lighting, the stage easily encompasses the whole auditorium as we are also pulled into the cosmic realm with it.
I am reminded of the first time I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Stanley Kubrick classic from 1968. Watching on the large screen of the Cinerama theatre, the closest there was to IMax at the time.
The final sequence is the entry through the star gate and the kaleidoscopic visual rush as the secrets of the universe open up. The multi-verse is revealed.
Sound is elemental in Belle. Deep gut bass tones resonate through your viscera. Music composition headed by Eden Mulholland. Anita Clark plays the violin on stage.
Music suggests vast landscapes encompassing the cloud realm. It is the experimental movie Koyaanisqatsi (1982) in 3D.
The show combines dance and aerial performances in a manner that is lyrical and seamless. Choreographer is Jenny Ritchie.
The light show gives equal status to the dark. Dancers disappear into streams of black smoke. They can be ascending or descending on ropes. Limbs transform into jets of black clouds.
There are strobe effects and bright white lights directed into the audience can be blinding. A masterful display from the lighting man Rowan Pierce.
Truly invisible to the audience is the rigging set-up. Ropes, pulleys and harnesses which allows the performers to suspend on single rings and double rings.
To float and exist in the stratosphere. I am reminded of William Burroughs and his Book of Dreams in particular. The Godfather of the Beats kept a record of many years of dreams and identified the flying experience as key recurrent motifs. Suggesting astral travel.
Used repeatedly by David Lynch in his third instalment of Twin Peaks (2018), where Special Agent Dale Cooper is liberated from the mysterious Red Room and travels through a stream of black smoke through power sockets and rematerializes with another identity. Still on the trail of Laura Palmer.
That’s quite frazzled I will admit, but the tone of Belle is dreamlike, hallucinatory and unsettling. Intentionally.
Of the aerialists and dancers (combined), the routines have been designed to appear to defy physical laws.
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Belle – Image by Andi Crown Gymnastic routines on ropes are performed at Olympic levels of control.
The sequence with two suspended rings intertwined, matched with tandem dancers is possibly the most nature-defying.
I found the single large hoop on the ground just as startling, as it seemed to be powered by outside forces.
The most lyrical and balletic sequence was of the dancers falling and slowly rising around a long rectangular box. They are hanging on to ropes but the timing is immaculate.
This is a show which can stand repeat views as it is impossible to catch all the action in one sitting.
Belle – Image by Andi Crown Six years in gestation. From wild ideas to extensive research. To getting the nuts and bolts together and most importantly fitting everything seamlessly.
Started in 2018 and disrupted by the madness and witch hysteria of 2020. In a curious way Belle could be the first baby to emerge from that experience in the Art World.
Tempered in the cauldron of contagion and fear. Mixing the elements of music, dance, aerial ballet, lighting and quantum physics for a bewitching performance. Casting some healing spells.
Rev. Orange Peel
