Choreographed and co-edited by Gabrielle Thomas with VR filmmaker Ed Davis
TOMO VR is the first foray of Atamira Dance Company into the world of Virtual Reality where individual headsets take each audience member into an innovative digital experience of the full-length stage work that first premiered in 2019 at Tempo Dance Festival.
This VR film captures the dream space with its haunting tale of life and death.
Viewers will find themselves in a cavern of endless time, a world within a world, watching two travelling wairua (the bodiless self) and the generations of ancestors before them. Their mother holds the power of creation within her. She carries them in her womb and is the gateway to the world of light. She is a daughter, a sister and a mother in tapu (sacred).
One traveller departs to the world of the living, the other transcends to the embracing arms of Hine Nui Te Pō, the goddess of death.
TĀHUHU KŌRERO
KAHA-Tripleboost 2022
Q Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau
Matriarchs Uprising 2023
Vancouver, Canada
Doc Edge International Film Festival - XR Exhibition 2023
Tāmaki Makaurau & Te Whanganui-a-Tara
Toi Mauri Hauora Hub 2023
Curated by Cathy Livermore for Matariki Festival 2023
SXSW Sydney 2023 - nominated for an innovation award
Sydney, Australia
PANNZ Arts Market 2024
Tāmaki Makaurau
"Through the intimacy and attentiveness of virtual reality, you stare directly into his eyes, see the sweat dripping down his face. Three wāhine, women, appear to help the wairua on his journey into the world of light. Weaving through space, they highlight the reflective potential of each other and their tīpuna, ancestors, behind them."
Natasha van Etten, Theatreview 2022
