The Eggyssey is Black Grace’s newest piece of dance theatre and it is the inaugural show at their new fale in central Auckland. The venue is very cool and the show superb.
This new piece is loosely based on the ancient Greek story of The Odyssey. The show was apparently inspired by the idea of journeys and changes in life and it certainly did present a wide range of human interactions.
Let’s start with the costumes which were well tailored and featured suit jackets in gorgeous pastel shades. There was no set and indeed none was needed as the various numbers took up the entire space of the main hall in the fale.
The choreography was slick, tight, and full of verve. When combined with a lively soundtrack of commercial music from a number of decades the over all impression was one of exuberance and full of life.
I got the impression there were multiple themes that ran through the show such as violence, a desire for peace, one-upmanship, our relationship to social media, and romance.
It was a heady mix, at times messy, at other times beautifully synchronous, the perfect physical metaphor of human existence.
It is hard to pick favourite moments, but seeing the dancers running exaggeratedly on the spot to Talking Head’s Road to Nowhere was a delight. Another was a series of slow motion movements to the song Express Yourself. In this piece the dancers formed groups and acted out various types lf human moments such as a fist fight, a marriage proposal, people taking endless selfies, and even, I think, a group playing volleyball on a beach.
And as a Shirley Bassey fan it was wonderful seeing the ensemble creating manic, robotic movements to the strains of the song History Repeating.
This was another successful and beautiful piece of dance from Black Grace and a fantastic introduction to their brand new home.
THE EGGYSSEY
20-31 October 2026
Black Grace Fale – Auckland
