The New Zealand Dance Company (incorporated as The New Zealand Dance Advancement Trust) is an Auckland based, nationally focused contemporary dance company.
The company sought to break the paradigm of dance companies operating on a project by project basis, presenting work by one choreographer, and moved instead to a sustainable model of presenting a variety of choreographic works.
The New Zealand Dance Company (NZDC) was founded in 2012 by former Limbs Dance Company member Shona McCullagh and the founding General Manager Frances Turner. Like Limbs, the NZDC company commissions work from New Zealand and international choreographers. [1] Part of the mission was to support new talent and utilise dancers and choreographers who had left New Zealand. [2] The founding production was the Language of Living, featuring choreographers Michael Parmenter, Justin Haiu, Sarah Foster-Sproull and Shona McCullagh. [3]
NZDC has developed more than 27 new works by choreographers from New Zealand, Australia, Holland and South Korea and has toured internationally including to the Holland Dance Festival, Australia, Germany, Liverpool, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Canada. [2]
In addition to a professional Company, NZDC has a Youth and Community Engagement Programme of weekly classes, masterclasses and workshops for all ages and levels – including an over 60s Feisty Feet class. [4]
In 2011 Creative New Zealand funded the new venture of The New Zealand Dance Company and Westpac bank sponsored. [3]
Production | Date | Location | Choreographers | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Stage of Being | 2023 | Auckland: ASB Waterfront Theatre, [6] | Tupua Tigifua (LittleBits and AddOns), Xin Ji & Xiao Chao Wen (Made in Them) | |
ArteFact [7] | 2022, 2023 | New Zealand Tour | Ross McCormack | |
Night Light [8] | 2022, 2023 | Auckland: ASB Waterfront Theatre | Tor Colombus and Eddie Elliott | |
This Fragile Planet | 2020 |
| Nina Nawalowalo and Tom McCrory (The Conch), Ross McCormack | |
International Tours | 2014–2019 |
| ||
Matariki for Tamariki | 2019–2022 |
| Sean McDonald | |
Kiss the Sky | 2017, 2019 |
| KIM Jae Duk, Victoria Columbus, Stephanie Lake, Sue Healey | |
Tamaki Tour | Auckland | Sean McDonald, Mia Mason, Lucy Marinkovich, Chrissy Kokiri, Taniora Motutere, Ashleigh Perriot, Tupua Tigafua, Bianca Hyslop, Scott Ewen, Omea Geary, Malia Johnston, Joshua Cesan | ||
Lumina | 2015, 2016 ,2018 |
| Stephen Shropshire, Louise Potiki Bryant, Malia Johnston | |
OrphEus - A Dance Opera | 2018 |
| Michael Parmenter | |
The Absurdity of Humanity | 2016, 2017 |
| ||
Rotunda | 2013, 2014, 2015 |
| Shona McCullagh in collaboration with dancers | |
Language of Living | 2012, 2013, 2014 |
| Shona McCullagh, Michael Parmenter, Sarah Foster-Sproull, Justin Haiu, Tupua Tigafua, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker | |
Shaun Parker's Trolleys |
| Shaun Parker | Argus Angel Award Winner (Brighton Festival, UK) |
The following lists events that happened during 2002 in New Zealand.
Douglas James Wright was a New Zealand dancer and choreographer in the New Zealand arts establishment from 1980 until his death in 2018. Although he announced his retirement from dance in 2008, on the occasion of the publication of his first book of poetry, Laughing Mirror he subsequently continued to make dance works, including touring The Kiss Inside during April 2015.
Formerly known as Auckland Festival, Auckland Arts Festival or Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki Makaurau is an annual arts and cultural festival held in Auckland, New Zealand. The Festival features works from New Zealand, the Pacific, Asia and beyond, including world premieres of new works and international performing arts events.
Auckland Theatre Company (ATC) is a professional theatre company in Auckland. It was founded in 1992 and since 2016 has been based in ASB Waterfront Theatre in the Wynyard Quarter in central Auckland.
Chris Jannides is a founding dancer, choreographer and artistic director of Limbs Dance Company in Auckland, New Zealand.
Katie Wolfe is an actor, film and stage director from New Zealand. She appeared in television series including Marlin Bay (1990s), Shortland Street, and Mercy Peak. Her screen directing work has won awards, including Redemption at the ImagineNative Film + Media Arts Festival and This Is Her at the Prague International Short Film Festival. Wolfe wrote and directed a stage play, The Haka Party Incident that was presented in 2023 in New Zealand.
Atamira Dance Company is a Māori contemporary dance company in Aotearoa based at the Corban Estate Arts Centre in Auckland.
Footnote New Zealand Dance is New Zealand's oldest contemporary dance company. Based in Wellington, it has been described as "New Zealand’s most enduring and influential contemporary dance company."
The Limbs Dance Company was formed in Auckland, New Zealand in May 1977 and disbanded in Wellington in September 1989. Limbs was "the first contemporary dance company in New Zealand to win a general following", and performed alongside notable New Zealand acts such as Split Enz.
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.
Jack Gray is a New Zealand choreographer, researcher and teacher of contemporary Māori dance.
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.
Taane Mete is a New Zealand dancer, choreographer and yoga teacher.
Russell Ian Kerr was a New Zealand ballet dancer, choreographer, and producer. After spending the 1950s dancing in Europe, he returned to New Zealand where he was instrumental in the development of the New Zealand Ballet Company and ballet as an art form in New Zealand. He was recognised as one of New Zealand's most significant living artists in 2005 with an Icon Award from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand.
Tupe Lualua is a New Zealand–Samoan choreographer, director, founder of the dance company Le Moana. She is the artistic director and producer for the Measina Festival, and has worked with choreographer Tupua Tigafua. In 2019, Lualua was the Creative New Zealand Samoa artist-in-residence.
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.
Tempo Dance Festival is an annual pan-genre professional dance festival held in Auckland, New Zealand and is the 'longest standing annual dance event' of New Zealand, founded in 2003.
Cat Ruka is a New Zealand dancer, choreographer, performance director and arts manager.
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.
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