Three people dance to pulsating rave music for almost an hour without stopping. The only pauses are taken at break-neck speed in order to empty plastic water bottles before dancing on. Relentlessly. Blow by blow, beat by beat.

The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave is a performance of physical endurance that pushes the body and the audience to the limits. With roots in international underground culture, a scenic room is created equally shared by a feeling of club and choreographic ritual. The energy is amazing and the audience is drawn into a state that shifts between meditation and ecstasy. Monotony becomes hypnotic, repetition becomes explosive. Bodies frazzle, sweat flows freely, and what began as euphoria gradually transforms into something raw and exhausting.

The performance distills three days of partying into one intensive hour. The resulting dance style combines techno and rave cultures and explores the body as motor and as offer; the music, the passion and humanity’s constant drive to continue, to achieve and to win, over and over again.

A ritual of sweat, pain and enjoyment. A raging distillation of rave culture, stamina and human obsession. A performance unlike anything else.

Oli Mathiesen is a choreographer and dancer based in New Zeeland. From a point of departure  that includes the native population’s identity, politics cocncerns and queer themes, he creates works that move between the personal and the collective. His prize-winning The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave has toured internationally and been performed at festivals in, among other places, Edinburgh, Melbourne and Sydney.

Mathiesen is joined onstage by Lucy Lynch och Sharvon Mortimer, two dancers active in the contemporary dance scene in Aotearoa, New Zeeland, with experience of stage productions as well as interdisciplinary projects.

The performance has been created to the album Nocturbulous Behaviour (2010) by Detroit producer Suburban Knight. Raw Detroit techno propels the dance forward in an intense, pulsating flow so that the ecstasy of rave culture is embodied onstage.

Strobe lighting and smoke effects are used in the performance.

Single tickets released on 21 May.

On Stage

Oli Mathiesen
Lucy Lynch
Sharvon Mortimer

Artistic Team

Concept, Choreography
Oli Mathiesen

Choreography
Lucy Lynch
Sharvon Mortimer

Music
Suburban Knight

Producer and Stage Manager
Gina Heidekruger

Lighting, Production Management, and Technical Operations
Shanell Bielawa

Lighting
Oli Mathiesen, Shanell Bielawa, Bekky Boyce, Jazmin Whittall, Jacobus Engelbrecht (Legit Events)

Creative Producer
Abbie Rogers

Set Design and Technical Operations
Bekky Boyce

Artistic Advisor
Lulu Qiu

Partners and Support

International Booking Agent
Aurora Nova

Booking Agent (New Zealand and Australia)
Shona McCullagh

Supported by
Creative New Zealand