ODDLY
Dancers of Edie
a r a p e t a
Whanaunga, Ruanui, Mahuta, Koata, Te Wehi, Kahu, Te Rarawa, Te Aupouri, Ngapuhi, Porou Clan Crawford, Clan
Brown, Ashton (Whangateau).
As a child I have fond a memory, where I twirled around like a belarina in my mothers white linen dress. Illuminated by eternal golden light, the feeling of freedom as morning dew of my Kuia's lawn kissed my feet. My mother by my side as she held my hand, her too in a linen dress, as my late father captured the moment in a roll of film. I remember the feeling of the wind so clearly as it had gently greeted our bodies giving off a fresh chill that reassured us that the gods were with us. Dancing like flowers, floating ethereally like feathers in that calming breeze, the memory is still carried in the same way within my mind.
Dancers of Edie brings together a suite of takatäpui and whanau taonga that explore takatäpuitanga (collective and personal) through themes of whanau dance legacies. Felt through a gentle recalling of memory, the exhibition re-envisions a coming of age as takatäpui through a playful response to an array of objects from the artist and their kuia's personal tanga collections', 'Aloma on Stage, Collection of 66 Heru, 2022, Stage, 2023, courtesy of the a r t i s t ' and 'Anna Pavlova In Her Vatrine, 1940-1987, From Dolly House courtesy of Nani Edith'.
A dance as lucid and vivid as childhood memories can
often be, Dancers of Edie unpacks the sense of multiplicities of the self as takatäpui and reimagines ways in which they are recited and composed in time and space. Personified through t a n g a as vessels,
a r a p e t a draws upon, collides and merges modes of intergenerational storytelling (physical and
metaphysical) as a catalyst to explore tender feelings and ephemerality of dancing in motion, dreaming, queer desire and joy.
Dancers of Edie, 2023, Poem, Courtesy of the artist.
Biography, Ana Matveyevna Pavlova 12 February 1881 - January 23 1931. Renowned Russian Prima Ballerina influential of Contemporary Ballet and Dance through t h e i r composition of 'The Dying Swan' 1905.
