The Station – ASB Waterfront Theatre, 7 June 2024: Review

The Station brings the urban street theatre of Rap and dance to the sophisticated setting of the Waterfront Theatre.

It reflects it deeper roots of The Dozens. The oral street tradition of trading insults and braggadocio as a displacement activity to engaging in a street brawl. Often profane and cuttingly humorous. As much a broadsheet with fake news and hard truth in equal proportions.

The password to this world is Yo’ Mama. What about my Mama? is the key to unlock.

The Station was the first work produced by the Fresh Movement dance ensemble, the Freshman Dance Crew in 2014.

This year it is one of the highlights of the Pacific Dance Festival 2024.

The Director for the current production is Hadleigh Pouesi. It features the works of Christopher Ofana, William Rakena and others.

The audience tonight for this singular performance are equal parts the regular patrons and young Polynesians.

At the prelude people are wandering the stage, skateboarding, getting told off by security. All to the sounds of Scribe.

A simple stage with the Station sign above, and a park bench as the only prop. A train station it must be, as it is more theatrical than a bus station. It could be South Auckland. It is probably West.

The station is quiet. A few appear and people are afraid to merge, as Bret Easton Ellis famously opened his debut novel Less Than Zero.

Boy sees girl. Boy is attracted to girl, who is attracted to another. The rules of attraction.

The whole ensemble appears, I count seventeen, and bust out extremely well-choreographed moves. Contemporary dance melded to familiar Rap and Hip-Hop styles.

In keeping with this, the younger audience members yell encouragement as the ensemble uncoils and winds up repeatedly.

Throughout this there is a continuous DJ soundtrack of Rap and Hip-Hop. A lot sounds familiar, from Gangsta to Old School to East Coast, G-Funk, Grime, Trap, Crunk and back around again.

The soundtrack is tastefully curated, but it is more than matched by the dance routines.

This has it’s roots in street theatre, but it is comfortable and at home in theatres and the big arenas.

Over the last 12 months I have seen superlative shows from Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, Wu-Tang Clan, Ice-Cube (from the band called Niggaz Wit’ Attitude), Jason Derulo headlining Fridayz Live ’23.

That music reached an artistic peak with Hamilton, a multi award-winning Broadway theatrical production with Rap, Hip-Hop and dance at the heart.

This is dance theatre which is comfortable and at home on the biggest stages.

The curious thing is that it resembles the urban American streets. The West continues to colonize through its pervasive culture. And the streets of Auckland mimic that more than we care to admit.

What about the Polynesian and South Pacific roots?

People ape what they hear in the music, what they watch streaming on the internet. Attitude is empowering.

There are scripted lines about cruising in Upolu and Apia. I don’t think I hear any dialogue in a native tongue.

Those thoughts are only fleeting, as The Station is all about the quality of the artistry. That which came from a long history of oral tradition. Which is a Polynesian tradition.

Rev. Orange Peel