Lemi Ponifasio: I AM

“Art can point us to or remind us of our ability to transform triumphantly without violence and pain.” (Lemi Ponifasio)

Following his production of Carl Orff’s Prometheus at the Ruhrtriennale 2012, this year Samoan performance artist and chorographer Lemi Ponifasio will be showing a new work created jointly with MAU Company. The title I AM refers to the Biblical story of divine revelation, a synonym for moments of greatest doubt and the possibility of escaping the darkness. Ponifasio directs his attention at the major cities of our time, exploring the fragile balance between creation and destruction that defines our civilization until today.

Ponifasio’s performances, merciless and disturbing in their beauty and silence, generate awareness. Rooted in the cultural values of the Pacific, he understands theater as ceremony, as a communal event in which the mysterious moment of immediate presence is shared. With movement, language, deceleration, and the dynamic interplay of light and shadow, he creates impressive images of formal strictness. His pieces with their decelerated rhythm leave room for fantasy: „Imagination, the constant sensing of what is not here, the sensing of another alternative – it is liberation, it is hope, imagination makes life a wondrous act. I don’t think you have lost anything. It is a choice you can still make.” (Lemi Ponifasio)

The cast of Lemi Ponifasio's I AM consists of a team of performers from New Zealand, Europe, Australia, Canada , Turkey, New Caledonia, and Samoa.