Sælvage Collective

July 16th, 2023
5:00 PM
New Athenaeum Theatre Dunedin

July 24th 2023
6:00PM
University of Canterbury Recital Room
Christchurch

Sælvage collective is a dynamic new ensemble comprised of composers and performers based across Ōtepoti Dunedin and Ōtautahi Christchurch. This inaugural concert presents three new works by significant emerging New Zealand composers Ihlara McIndoe, Luka Reardon and Nathaniel Otley, who along with performer Henry Nicholson make up the performers in this new collective. The works themselves are exciting blends of new music and theatre, with particular emphasis placed on atmosphere and process in each piece.

Our inaugural concert consisted of the world-premieres of the following works. Videos are from our July 24th performance in Christchurch.

This funny weather, these silly little things – Ihlara McIndoe

Taking its inspiration from the uninspirational, this work is an exploration of the ordinary.  I am interested in the vitality of the apparently uninteresting, the significance of the seemingly banal, the beauty of the reputedly tacky.  Part sound-art, part theatre, part poetry, this work is a coming of age reflection on growing up in an extraordinary ordinary little city at the bottom of the world.  A study of rhythm through the bread from my favorite bakery, a tapestry made out of two weeks’ worth of Otago Daily Times deliveries, a lesson on abstractionism from the seagull droppings on Robbie Burns’ head: these are just a few of the Ōtepoti offerings explored in the work, and which the foundation of my identity as a Dunedin artist is built upon.

“calming music” – Luka Reardon

This is a study on the geographical impact of personal relationships. Many of our lives have been in a state of movement, or transition, over the past few years – whether that be a matter of geographical relocation, redirection of career, priority or aspiration, or so on – and I have found that this is so often down to the people we know and their significance in our lives. I find myself lucky to have been moved by the beneficial (and adverse) connections I have made thus far, and so this work is a reflection on the various (yet often related) situations we may all find ourselves in with the people we know, for better or worse.

Echoes of Former Wetlands – Nathaniel Otley

This work is an exploration of a variety of ideas closely tied to Ōtepoti Dunedin. It primarily explores the ecological function and importance of wetlands, which prior to reclamation dominated the area that is now South Dunedin. The work explores what the loss of such vital ecosystems can mean, especially in the present with increasing adverse weather and flooding, something that affected Ōtepoti in 2015 with the extensive South Dunedin flooding, an occurrence that is becoming a concern across contemporary Aotearoa. The work incorporates ideas of both scientific data and ecological poetry to create a rich work that is deeply rooted both in time and place.