Nigamon/Tunai is part ritual, part performance, part narrative.  It’s based around the fight of an Indigenous group in the Colombian Amazon to prevent a road being built through their land in order to exploit a copper deposit but it interweaves this with water lore and creation myths from all over the Americas.  It’s playing in the Ada Slaight Hall at the Daniels Spectrum as part of Luminato.

The performance space is set up “in the round” with some of the audience on cushions close to the action.  There are trees, pools and rocks and even a boat.  The co-author/director/performers; Èmilie Monnet and Waira Nina wander around the dimly lit space pouring water from one thing to another, reaaranging rocks and making bird noises; sometimes very loud!.  The narrative is pre-recorded and integrated into a complex sound design which ranges from hypnotically sparse gong/bell sounds to terrifyingly loud as the destruction caused by road building is evoked.  The lighting is super dramatic on occasions but most of the time it’s just dark and hazy to the point where it’s hard to see action one isn’t close to.

There’s lots of narrative.  There’s the “here and now”; the narrative about the mine project and the dangers of being a land/water defender in the Amazon; especially if one is Indigenous.  There’s a complicated mix of water ore and creation myth centring on the story of the Great Turtle but with many other elements woven in.  We hear many different voices.  It’s intriguing, sometimes moving but somewhat unfocussed.

I really wanted to like this piece more. It has lots of interesting elements and the subject matter is important but it doesn’t feel like an integrated whole or even like it has any real structure at all.  This is exemplified by the number of times the audience (and the Luminato staff!) wasn’t sure whether it had finished or not.  It also feels too long and rather repetitive.  In short, an interesting and very worthy experiment but one that seems a bit confused as to what it’s all about.

There are two more performances; tonight (June 6th) and tomorrow.