Company Z, Auckland

At last Twenty years after Russell Kerr, Auckland again has a classically trained choreographer with a modern mind, and a company of New Zealand-born, internationally trained artists to match.

Tim Gordon’s Company Z is a group of strong individuals, ranging in age from 18 to 40-something, obviously chosen for their variety of shapes, sizes and movement qualities. And what beautiful movement it is: intelligent, expressive, powerful and delicate by turns, it holds the eve as a good poem grips the mind.

In fact, the first two pieces are dance poems, vignettes of character and emotion woven by the choreographer on existing music. "Sonata for Seven" is set to an impassioned, percussive Prokofiev’s piano sonata. Three men battle savagely for dominance and against their own vulnerability; a woman, fearfully confronting the advancing years, takes courage and joy from a brief encounter with a younger man; a sharp-edged young couple, both fiercely individual, discover equality.

"Bedruthan Steps" in contrast, uses English composer Jon Surmans wistful, plangent wind-blown Jazz to call up gentle dances about choices we make loneliness or solitude, display or concealment, friendship or partnership. Gordon highlights the movement 'key' of each dancer. Lorita Travaglia, pliant and fine, subtle as a rapier. Nigel Gallienne with his ardent stage presence and handsome line; petite power-pack charmer Rebecca Paul, fleet and incisive; Geordan Wilson, sensitive actor in the body of a racing horse. Most memorable is statuesque Fiona Druskovich - her dancing sensuous and heady.

The third piece "Boutique Joy" is a satirical comment on consumerism, its wide comic images etched in vitriol. Actor-dancer Declan Manning uses Gordon’s clever text notes and Japanese economy of gesture to underline the insidiousness of advertising and turns sundry items of whiteware into objects with chaotic results. Dancers and audience delighted in this quirky work.

Company Z lives up to its promise of "dance now". The dancers mentioned are just a few from Gordon’s exciting roster, who, in his creative intelligence is up there with Graeme Murphy. William Forsythe, Jiri Kylian and John Cranko. If we pay mega bucks to see their companies, surely our own artists deserve at least our attention?

Timothy Gordon, choreographer and artistic director of this exciting new dance company, puts a cool and controlled face on his passion in the three works presented in this inaugural performance.

Sonata for Seven is a formal abstraction to Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata, Boutique Joy a dramatic whimsy on the very commercial aspects of "home enhancement".

But the middle piece in the programme, Bedruthan Steps, which was created in Melbourne in June this year by the Melbourne Dance Theatre, illustrates Gordon’s very latest thinking.

Informed by his study of the Alexander Technique, he has worked his choreography here on the intrinsic qualities of each of the dancers. But even in the resulting combination of very different movement styles, the piece remains eerily unified.

Performed to John Surman’s jazz score, it is billed as a study of "first encounters and individual choices" for six dancers. Last night there were only five - but without the programme intelligence we would not have noticed that something was amiss.

Nigel Gallienne and Geordan Wilcox danced with more than enough panache for three and Fiona Druskovich was a sensual and incredibly expressive centrepiece, flanked by Lorita Travaglia and Rebecca Paul.

Dramatic lighting, which does the work of sets and backdrops throughout, is particularly effective in Bedruthan Steps, especially in the line of dancers in duet with their blurred shadows against an ochre wall.

The closing moment, with one male and one female dancer almost meeting in the falling darkness, is particularly evocative.

In No Limits Company Z last night showed an auspicious and talented promise.

There were hints, as well, of its precarious foothold. A low budget inevitably reflects in costuming and staging. But there is little Gordon and Co can do about that unless they get the full-hearted support they have now proved they deserve.

- Bernadette Rae