Dance News Australia

NZ Dance News, March

Creative New Zealand is calling for applications from established New Zealand choreographers for the $65,000 Creative New Zealand Choreographic Fellowship. The fellowship provides the time and/or resources for the Fellow to commit to a period of investigation, experimentation or research in their practice.  It will be awarded for a project and/or programme of activity and is open to choreographers who have already produced a significant body of work.

Previous recipients of this fellowship are: Shona McCullagh (2004), Douglas Wright (2005), Michael Parmenter (2006), Lemi Ponifasio (2008), Daniel Belton (2009) and Catherine Chappell (2011). Applications close at 5pm on Friday, March 15, 2013. For more information on how to apply for the fellowship, go to www.creativenz.govt.nz.

Tempo is New Zealand’s biggest dance festival, and this year it takes place from 9 – 20 October, so put the dates in your diary! Tempo 2013 takes place at Q Theatre, Queen Street in Auckland. To put in an Expression of Interest for a dance work in Tempo 2013, email celia@tempo.co.nz for a form.

Pacific contemporary dance company Black Grace is in the midst of their 5-week North American tour. From February 19, the extensive five-and-a-half week tour is seeing Vaka journey to the U.S. and Canada, specifically to venues in Portland, Seattle, Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, Virginia, Vancouver, Victoria, Minnesota and California, with 21 performances in total.

Vaka marks Black Grace’s fifth tour of the U.S. since 2004; they are the only NZ dance company to consistently tour to the States. The company has trail-blazed New Zealand dance across the US and was the first dance company to perform at the prestigious Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in 2004/05, and at the Cervantino International Arts Festival in Leon, Mexico.

Black Grace’s movements in New Zealand through 2013 include four festival performances – at the Festival of Colour in Wanaka and Queenstown, and the Southland Festival of the Arts in Invercargill, both in April, followed by the Taranaki International Arts Festival in August and then the Christchurch Arts Festival in September. The company will also be working with a select group of Southland’s young people as part of their Invercargill performance.

Footnote Dance presents Footnote Forte 2013 – We have been there (Cloud In Hand) – a newly commissioned work by Lisa Densem. “This particular homecoming has been some years in the planning, and it is wonderful to bring Lisa home. She is a very special New Zealander and has made her name so far away,” says Director Deirdre Tarrant.

Footnote travelled to work with Densem in October 2012 at the Ufer Studios in Berlin. The new work opens in Wellington this month and will tour through to the end of April. The music is by Wellington composer Andrew Thomas. An ex-Footnote dancer, Densem has worked extensively with Sasha Waltz & Guests, one of Germany’s most successful companies, touring the globe with up to 80 performances a year. Her new work for Footnote is choreography of discovery. Densem is using techniques that explore the body in context with the surrounding space and searching for moments that emerge from this exploration.

Photo: Footnote Dance, We have been there (Cloud In Hand)

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