Dreams, terrors, hope _{by Madelaine Empson}

Footnote New Zealand Dance will premiere Big Low Dream, their next full-length production, at The Hannah from the 10^th to the 12^th of September ahead of a national tour. The contemporary dance work is about what we reach for together in the dark. Choreographer Jessie McCall has looked to dream logic – unruly, queer, ethically imaginative – as a way to hold onto meaning in a time of overlapping crises: overt violence and exploitation, “the systems (both sociological and psychological) that allow this to be ignored by so many of us on a day-to-day basis”, and the undervaluing of the arts in our society.

“Big Low Dream is a reflection of a few different things that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately – about the way conscious and unconscious understanding, feelings, and beliefs are often kept apart in the mind, and the new perspectives that we can only reach by letting them come together”, McCall says.

Big Low Dream features an award-winning lineup of creatives, with dance artists Airu Matsuda, Caleb Heke, Millie Maden, and Sasha Matsumoto, performance designer Meg Rollandi, sound designer Thomas Lambert, and lighting designer Tony Black. The result is a visually and aurally rich world of hyperreal design and dark whimsy where spectacle flirts with collapse.

McCall hopes “audiences find themselves engaging with their own dreams, terrors, and hopes”.

“I think dance has a particular way of accessing emotion, possibility, and bringing new perspectives to the fore, without relying on the rationality of spoken language. I think that is a powerful thing at the moment when ways of knowing ourselves and solving problems that are non-linear, and intuitive, are more important than ever for moving towards a future that is liveable for everyone.”