Daniel Belton

Last updated

Daniel Belton
Born1970 (age 52–53)
Nelson, New Zealand
Occupations
  • Dancer
  • choreographer
  • film-maker
SpouseDonnine Harrison
Awards

Daniel Alexander Belton (born 1970) is a New Zealand dancer, choreographer and film-maker based in Dunedin. He is the co-founder and artistic director of Good Company Arts (GCA). [1] He is an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate. His works have been shown in America, Europe, South America, Asia and the Pacific.

Contents

Early life and education

Belton was born in Nelson in 1970. [2] He was educated at Nelson College from 1983 to 1987, and was a prefect in his final year there. [3] Belton graduated from the New Zealand School of Dance in 1990. [4] He then toured overseas as a dancer with the Douglas Wright Dance Company, with his wife and artistic partner, dancer Donnine Harrison. They remained in Europe for seven years, working with a number of prestigious companies, including Arc Dance Company and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. [5] They returned to New Zealand in 1997. [6]

Work

Belton has choreographed a number of acclaimed dance works, including Leaf (1998), Concertina (1999) and Soundings (2000). He has also created a number of experimental filmed dance works, such as Axis: Anatomy of Space (2017), which featured dancers from the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and had its world premiere in the Planetarium of the Otago Museum (Dunedin). [7] Belton's 2014 work Satellite was commissioned by the Royal New Zealand Ballet; dancers performed while holding round discs related to kinetic sculptures by sonic artist Jim Murphy. [8] The ideas from Satellite were developed further in Axis, performed in the planetarium at the Otago Museum in 2017 as part of the Matariki Festival. Reviewer Hahna Briggs wrote "The film shows the infiniteness of the universe through the simultaneous imploding and exploding of bodies in space and time. In addition, the interconnectedness of everything is demonstrated in the dance through showing similar and repeating patterns that occur in space, sound, water and bodies." [8] Axis has subsequently been screened (as an Official Selection) in Festivals in Singapore, Colombia, Korea, Hong Kong, Auckland and San Francisco. [7]

Belton's first major collaborative work was Soundings, produced for the Otago Festival in 2000, and employing 30 people, including actors Simon O'Connor and Richard Huber, dancers Donnine Harrison, Tom Ward, Simon Ellis, Bronwyn Judge, Melanie Hamilton, Kristian Larsen, Kelly Nash, designers and technicians. [9] Costumes were by leading NZ fashion designer Tanya Carlson. Belton directed, choreographed and danced in the piece.

OneOne is a 35-minute video piece with video mapping by Belton. Belton reworks the piece for each setting. A performance at the 2016 Light Nelson event featured music recorded by Richard Nunns using taonga pūoro (traditional Māori musical instruments), sound effects recorded from the Waitaki region and dance by Janessa Duffy of the Sydney Dance Company. [10]

His most recent collaborative work, still in progress, is Ad Parnassum - purapurawhetū, made with composer Dame Gillian Karawe Whitehead, along with the New Zealand String Quartet and the use of Taonga Pūoro. It is scheduled to have its digital premiere in December 2021. [11]

As a film maker, Belton has created a number of short films which have been premiered in sundry film festivals, under the Good Company Arts banner. These include Matchbox (2008), Ato-Mick (2010) and Ato-Miss (2012), amongst others. Ato-Mick, for example, was selected for Official Competition in: Linoleum 2010 International Festival of Contemporary Animation and Media Art, Moscow, Russia. It was a finalist in the Roma Independent Film Festival Awards 2011, Rome, Italy. [12]

Awards and honours

In 2004 Belton was based at the University of Otago as the Creative New Zealand Choreographic Research Resident, and in 2008 the Media Artist in Residence at Massey University. [13] Also in 2008, Belton received the prize for "most innovative work" for After Durer at the XV Festival Internazionale di Videodanza, at the Museo Madre, in Naples. [14]

In 2009, Belton received the largest choreographic award available in New Zealand, the Creative New Zealand Choreographic Fellowship, worth $65,000. Making the award, the Chair of the Arts Board of Creative New Zealand, Alan Sorrell, said "Daniel Belton is one of New Zealand’s leading dance film choreographers whose work is characterised by innovation and a multi-disciplinary approach...he is internationally renowned in the dance film genre." [14]

Belton was Choreographic Fellow of the Arts Council of New Zealand in 2010. [13]

Belton was a New Zealand Arts Foundation laureate in 2015. [13] In 2017, at the World Stage Design Awards, Taipei, Taiwan, he received a professional designer/projection and multi-media design bronze award, for OneOne. [15]

In 2019 Daniel and Good Company Arts were awarded first place in the Sino x Niio Illumination Art Prize, Hong Kong, also for OneOne. [13] [16] [17] In her review of Belton's work, Catherine Pattison describes him as one of only two New Zealand dance film-makers to make it on the international stage (the other being Shona McCullagh). [18]

Related Research Articles

The following lists events that happened during 2002 in New Zealand.

Garry Stewart is an Australian dancer and choreographer. He was the longest-serving artistic director of the Australian Dance Theatre, taking over from Meryl Tankard in 1999 and finishing his term at the end of 2021. He is renowned for his unusual, post-modern interpretations of classical ballets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arts Foundation of New Zealand</span> Arts organisation in New Zealand

'The Arts Foundation of New Zealand Te Tumu Toi is a New Zealand arts organisation that supports artistic excellence and facilitates private philanthropy through raising funds for the arts and allocating it to New Zealand artists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loughlan Prior</span> New Zealand dancer and choreographer

Loughlan Prior is a dancer and choreographer based in New Zealand. He creates theatre, film and multimedia projects, and has had his work presented in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, Germany and the United States.

Atamira Dance Company is a Māori contemporary dance company in Aotearoa based at the Corban Estate Arts Centre in Auckland.

The New Zealand Dance Company is an Auckland based, nationally focused contemporary dance company.

Shona Margaret McCullagh is a New Zealand choreographer, dancer, filmmaker and artistic director. McCullagh was the founding director of the New Zealand Dance Company and was appointed artistic director of the Auckland Festival in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Zealand School of Dance</span> Ballet and contemporary dance school

The New Zealand School of Dance was established in 1967 and is a tertiary educational institute in New Zealand that teaches contemporary dance and ballet. It started as the National School of Ballet, and after contemporary dance was added in 1982 the name was changed to the New Zealand School of Dance.

Dance Aotearoa New Zealand (DANZ) is the national support organisation for dance in New Zealand, founded in 1993. It is a not-for-profit, with a stated mission "to make dance visible" through "the promotion of dance and the provision of services to the dance sector in all its diversity." In 2019 it failed to gain funding from Creative New Zealand and sought a judicial review of the funding decision in 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Huber</span> Actor, director, playwright in New Zealand

Richard Huber is a playwright, actor and director based in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Sarah Foster-Sproull is a New Zealand choreographer, dancer and senior lecturer in dance studies at the University of Auckland.

Tupe Lualua is a New Zealand-Samoan choreographer, director, founder of the dance company Le Moana. She is also the current artistic director and producer for the Measina Festival, and award winning choreographer Tupua Tigafua. In 2019 Lualua was the Creative New Zealand Samoa Artist in Residence.

Bianca Hyslop is a New Zealand Māori dancer and choreographer. She is affiliated to Te Arawa and Ngāti Whakaue iwi.

Louise Mary Potiki Bryant is a New Zealand choreographer, dancer and video artist. She has choreographed a number of award-winning performances, and is a founding member of Atamira Dance Company. She designs, produces and edits videos of performances for music videos, dance films and video art installations. She was made an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate in 2019.

Susan Jordan is a New Zealand dancer, choreographer and dance instructor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucy Marinkovich</span> New Zealand dancer and choreographer

Lucy Marinkovich is a New Zealand dancer and choreographer. She is the artistic director and choreographer of Wellington-based performing arts group Borderline Arts Ensemble.

Ariana Rahera Tikao is a New Zealand singer, musician and author. Her works explore her identity as a Kāi Tahu woman and her music often utilises taonga pūoro. Notably, she co-composed the first concerto for taonga pūoro in 2015. She has released three solo albums and collaborated with a number of other musicians. She was a recipient of an Arts Foundation Laureate Award in 2020.

Tupua Tigafua is a Samoan choreographer and dancer based in New Zealand. Tigafua was a recipient of the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Award for Emerging Artist in 2017. In 2021, the Wellington Theatre Awards presented him with the Excellence Award for Choreography and Movement for original work Ciggy Butts in the Sand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Touch Compass</span>

Touch Compass is a professional inclusive dance company in Aotearoa New Zealand established in 1997 that has disabled and non-disabled dancers. They have been at the forefront of inclusive dance in New Zealand and have 'paved the way for many dancers and companies across the country.' They create contemporary dance, dance-theatre performance and film. They also have an education programme and have run workshops, community classes and education for schools.

Gabri Christa is a Dutch performance artist, choreographer, professor, film-maker and writer. She is an associate professor of Professional Practice at Barnard College and also the Director for the Movement Lab there.

References

  1. ↑ "GOOD COMPANY ARTS". GOOD COMPANY ARTS. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  2. ↑ "Internationally celebrated dance-film maker and choreographer Daniel Belton". New Zealand School of Dance. Archived from the original on 30 January 2020. Retrieved 11 August 2021.
  3. ↑ "Full school list of Nelson College, 1856–2005". Nelson College Old Boys' Register, 1856–2006 (CD-ROM) (6th ed.). 2006.
  4. ↑ "Daniel Belton" . Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  5. ↑ "New fellow fuses dance and arts with science". NZ Herald. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
  6. ↑ "Treading water". Stuff. 17 February 2009. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  7. 1 2 "AXIS". GOOD COMPANY ARTS. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  8. 1 2 Briggs, Hahna (25 March 2017). "Axis - anatomy of space: Daniel Belton and good company arts". DANZ Magazine: The Magazine of Dance Aotearoa New Zealand. 48: 8–9 – via Informit.
  9. ↑ "Theatre Aotearoa". tadb.otago.ac.nz. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  10. ↑ "Digital and dance technology combine to enthral audiences". Stuff. 22 June 2016. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
  11. ↑ "Ad Parnassum". GOOD COMPANY ARTS. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  12. ↑ "Archival Projects". GOOD COMPANY ARTS. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  13. 1 2 3 4 "Daniel Belton | Arts Foundation Laureate". Arts Foundation. Retrieved 27 October 2021.
  14. 1 2 Creative New Zealand (2 June 2009). "Daniel Belton awarded Creative New Zealand Choreographic Fellowship". Creative New Zealand. Archived from the original on 23 November 2020. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
  15. ↑ "World Stage Design 2017". www.wsd2017.com. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  16. ↑ Flightdec. "Daniel Belton wins Sino x Niio Illumination Art Prize". DANZ. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
  17. ↑ "New Zealand Dance News - January 2019". Dance Informa Magazine. 5 January 2019. Retrieved 1 December 2021.
  18. ↑ Pattison, Catherine (April 2009). "Daniel Belton Master Film Maker". DANZ Quarterly. 15: 6–7. ISSN   1177-0651 – via Informit.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.