Dancing the night away

Inspired by cheap Champagne, faux luxury, and the destruction of our natural world, choreographer Jessie McCall brings four dancers to the stage for a joyful yet confronting dance-theatre work Daybreak Estate, playing in Christchurch on 17 – 19 March.

Daybreak Estate was created in 2020 and premiered in Experimental Dance Week Aotearoa in the same year. Described by viewers as “haunting and charming”, “wildly clever”, and “hilarious in a somewhat devastating way”, the enthusiastic response from audiences inspired this remount and tour in 2022. The work has evolved since its first outing to reflect changes in the team’s own lives and perspectives.

Dancers include Liana Yew, Sharvon Mortimer, Olivia McGregor, and Terry Morrison.

“Daybreak Estate is the name of a cheap cask-wine brand. I love the contrast and contradiction of this affordable, bulk, low brow product with the grand and rather elitist sounding name. I feel that it speaks to the inevitable and utterly human contradictions, underbellies, and facades that we all play with in life, and that this work explores,” says McCall.

As in all of McCall’s work, Daybreak Estate will offer bold physicality, intimacy, and a chance to laugh out loud. Her work refuses to tell the viewer what to take away, but she aims to provoke with a series of images and notions around luxury, glamour, community, environmental destruction, social sabotage, and the natural world.

Venue: Little Andromeda, Level 1/134 Oxford Terrace, Christchurch Central City.

www.andromeda.co.nz