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Neil Ieremia ONZM is a New Zealand choreographer and entrepreneur. He is the founder, artistic director and chief executive of contemporary dance company, Black Grace. In 2016, he was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to dance.[ verification needed ]
Born and bred in Cannons Creek, Porirua, and of Samoan descent, Neil Ieremia was raised in a tough working-class neighbourhood located to the North East of Wellington. At the age of six, Ieremia was struck with rheumatic fever which damaged his heart, and meant he couldn't play sports with his friends. That was difficult for a Pacific Island boy living in one of the country's poorest suburbs where boys were expected to be sporty and tough. In this world, Ieremia found solace in dance. Ieremia was thirteen when he choreographed his first group dance for a church youth concert. He really enjoyed the sense of freedom and expression that he was able to experience during that performance and from then on he continued to choreograph and dance
Ieremia’s first introduction to professional dance and dancers was when he got a job on a choreographic team that participated in the Commonwealth Games in Auckland in 1990. From this experience Ieremia was invited to attend the Auckland Performing Arts School that was being established that year. At nineteen, and with no formal training, Ieremia left his job working in a bank and packed up his life in Porirua to move to Auckland. This is where he experienced his first ballet and contemporary classes. In his final year at the Auckland Performing Arts School, Ieremia joined the acclaimed Douglas Wright Dance Company and performed in the major works Gloria, A Far Cry, Forever, How on Earth and Buried Venus. He subsequently worked with many of New Zealand's leading choreographers.
Motivated to provide a different perspective and a fresh voice in the dance scene, Ieremia founded his own company, Black Grace, in 1995, with ten male dancers of Pacific, Maori and New Zealand heritage. Since then he has changed the face of contemporary dance in New Zealand and turned Black Grace into one of the most recognizable and iconic cultural brands. Ieremia draws from his Samoan and New Zealand roots to create innovative dance works that reach across social, cultural and generational barriers. The work itself is highly physical, rich in the storytelling traditions of the South Pacific and expressed with raw finesse, unique beauty and power.
Ieremia’s creative concepts are wide-ranging, from something as simple as creating movement to a favourite piece of music, right through to works exploring abuse, colonization and racism. He has also developed a number of different initiatives, which aim to further diversity audiences both nationally and internationally, as well as offer professional development to Company members and opportunities to community groups.
Ieremia has had numerous ‘firsts’ for a New Zealand choreographer including sell-out performances at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (USA debut 2004 and 2005), a four-week season on New York City’s 42nd Street, performances at the Cervantino Festival in Mexico, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and the 2010 Cultural Olympiad in Vancouver.
Ieremia has also choreographed work for the Royal New Zealand Ballet, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Opera New Zealand, New Zealand Wearable Arts and the Holland Dance Festival.
In 2018 he authored a children's book, Elephantic, and founded and directed a free festival for Pacific artists, The Guerrilla Collection.
- 2005 From Cannon’s Creek to Jacob’s Pillow. Documentary - Aileen O'Sullivan's and Toby Mills
- 2013 Mother Mother. Music Video - Fat Freddy’s Drop
- 2021 Elephantic. Dance film based on the book Elephantic authored by Neil Ieremia and illustrated by Pati Fuiava.
- 2006, Insights, New Zealand artists talk about creativity by Gareth Shute
- 2008, Dance: The Illustrated History of Dance in New Zealand by Tara Jahn-Werner
- 2012, The Power of Us, New Zealanders who dare to dream by Sir Ray Avery, Cameron Bennet & Adrian Malloch
- 2017, Leaders Like You, New Zealand leaders share stories of courage, failure and commitment, by Nick Sceats and Andrea Thompson
- 2018, Oh Boy, A storybook of Epic NZ Men, by Stuart Lipshaw
- 2021, The Reading Tribe by David Riley
The following lists events that happened during 2002 in New Zealand.
Albert Tuaopepe Wendt is a Samoan poet and writer who lives in New Zealand. He is one of the most influential writers in Oceania. His notable works include Sons for the Return Home, published in 1973, and Leaves of the Banyan Tree, published in 1979. As an academic he has taught at universities in Samoa, Fiji, Hawaii and New Zealand, and from 1988 to 2008 was the professor of New Zealand literature at the University of Auckland.
Black Grace is one of New Zealand's leading contemporary dance companies. Founded by Neil Ieremia in 1995, Ieremia draws from his Samoan and New Zealand roots to create innovative dance works that reach across social, cultural and generational barriers. Since its inception, Black Grace has changed the face of contemporary dance in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The work itself is highly physical, rich in the storytelling traditions of the South Pacific and expressed with raw finesse, unique beauty and power.
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Dancer and choreographer Ronald K. Brown founded the dance company Evidence in New York in 1985. Brown's work incorporates modern dance, Senegalese Sabar and other West African movement vocabularies, Afro-Caribbean dance, and contemporary urban dance from around the world. He has choreographed numerous works for his own company, as well as for Philadanco, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, the Maimouna Keita West African Dance Company, and many others. Brown has received numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Bessie Award, a Black Theater Alliance Award, and an Audelco Award for the choreography of Regina Taylor's musical Crowns. He has also been a guest artist at The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at CalArts. He studied dance with Mary Anthony.
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Lindah Aaron Lepou is a New Zealand-Samoan fashion designer. Her work is included in the permanent collection of Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
Michael Earl Parmenter is a New Zealand choreographer, teacher and dancer of contemporary dance.
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.
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Jack Gray is a New Zealand choreographer, researcher and teacher of contemporary Māori dance.
Taiaroa Royal is a New Zealand dancer and choreographer. Royal co-founded the contemporary Māori dance company Okareka with Taane Mete. As a dancer he has performed with New Zealand companies the Royal New Zealand Ballet, Douglas Wright Dance Company, Atamiria and Black Grace. He has choregraphed contemporary dance and also music videos including for Evermore and Ardijah, and for the World of Wearable Art (WOW) in Wellington. He is a 2023 recipient of an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award.
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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.
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.
Amanaki Lelei Prescott-Faletau is an actor, writer, dancer, choreographer, producer and director of Tongan descent, living in New Zealand. As a playwright, she became the first fakaleitī to have her work published in New Zealand with Inky Pinky Ponky. This play was awarded Best Teenage Script (2015) by New Zealand Playmarket. As an actor, she was awarded best performance at the 2015 Auckland Fringe Festival for Victor Rodger's Girl on the Corner. Her acting credits include The Breaker Upperers (2018), SIS (2020), The Panthers (2021), The Pact (2021) and Sui Generis (2022), in which she is also a writer for the TV series. Faletau competed as a dancer in the World Hip Hop Dance Championships in 2011 and has been a judge at the National Hip Hop Championships in New Zealand over several years.
Kween Kong is the stage name for the drag queen persona of Pasifika New Zealander former dancer Thomas Charles Fonua. Kong is best known for competing on the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under, where she was a runner-up.
Acquista, C. (2019, October). Neil Ieremia: The Grace of Resilience. Dance ICONS. Retrieved from http://www.danceicons.org/pages/?p=190927091519
Catherall, S. (2016, June 9) Neil Ieremia: A man full of grace. Stuff. Retrieved from https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/stage-and-theatre/80819486/neil-ieremia-a-man-full-of-grace
Husband, D. (2018, May 13) Neil Ieremia: Telling our stories through dance, E. Tangata. Retrieved from https://e-tangata.co.nz/korero/neil-ieremia-telling-our-stories-through-dance/
Neil (n.d). The What Dance Can Do Project. Retrieved from https://thewhatdancecandoproject.com/portfolio/neil/
Neil Ieremia. (n.d). The Arts Foundation. Retrieved from https://www.thearts.co.nz/artists/neil-ieremia
