TEMPO DANCE FESTIVAL TE RERENGA O TERE 2024
Whakakitenga | Performance
PĪATA
Pīata unfolded as a meeting of currents, where lineage and movement spoke across bodies and time.
The evening opened with Waitaketake, performed by Tūrongo Collective. Here, water and blood moved as living memory, carrying the weight of ancestry, protection, and knowing. The work held a quiet provocation, asking how connection is carried in the body, and how it is seen by those who do not understand its depth.
In the second half, Myokine by Anne Plamondon gathered the body into motion as a site of release and renewal. Through rhythm, precision, and collective breath, the dancers revealed the body as both vessel and response, holding resilience, beauty, and a fragile, enduring hope.
Together, these works formed Pīata, an evening shaped by contrast and continuity, where grounded cultural knowledge and contemporary expression moved alongside one another, each illuminating the other.
Tūrongo Collective (Aotearoa)
Anne Plamondon (Canada)
Thursday 10 October 2024, 8:15 pm
Sunday 13 October 2024, 7:30 pm
Q Theatre - Rangitira
100 minutes, including 20 minutes interval
Photography below by Asher Milgate. All images are copyright and owned by New Zealand Dance Festival Trust.
TWO
This captivating evening of dance, presented by the Royal New Zealand Ballet and BalletCollective Aotearoa, offered a striking exploration of the human condition through five distinctive acts.
The evening began with High Tide, a tender and reflective work choreographed by Alice Topp. The piece delved into the isolating experience of fear, those shadowy companions we either outgrew or grew into. High Tide captured the ebb and flow of our internal tides, exploring how fear shaped our lives, relationships, and the world around us.
Drawing inspiration from traditional ballroom and Latin dance, the work evolved into a unique physical language, breaking down the boundaries of gender and sexuality through a compelling display of movement and emotion.
Royal New Zealand Ballet
The Ballet Collective Aotearoa
Friday 11 October 2024, 7:30 pm
Saturday 12 October 2024, 7:30 pm
Q Theatre - Rangitira
60 minutes, no interval
TĀTAI WHETŪ
Atamira Dance Company
Tātai Whetū unfolded as a constellation of three film works created with Atamira’s performers and collaborators, alongside a series of short dance sketches for a new work in development. Together, these works spoke to the gathering of diverse creative strengths, connecting and expressing within the living world of Te Ao Māori.
The films and live dance guided audiences into the transitional space of te wheiao, where the boundaries between reality and imagination softened. Within this realm, grounded and celestial worlds moved together, held in the interplay of darkness and light.
Kelly Nash, an integral member of Atamira Dance Company since 2006, brought a depth of experience as a dancer, teacher, choreographer, healer, artistic manager, and rehearsal director. Her practice moved fluidly across cross-cultural spaces, weaving somatic knowledge, mentorship, and artistic leadership throughout the work.
Saturday 12 October 2024, 6 pm
Q Theatre - Vault
60 minutes, no interval
PŪHEKE
Louise Pōtiki Bryant
“Ko wai ko au, ko au ko wai – I am the water and the water is me.”
Pūheke unfolded as an intimate solo work by choreographer Louise Pōtiki Bryant, tracing a profound connection between body, spirit, and the living world. Emerging from a deeply personal journey of healing, the work drew from the movement and whakapapa of water, guided by the presence of atua wahine Parawhenuamea.
Through Pūheke, Bryant moved with the currents of freshwater, from the hidden springs of the whenua to the pathways that lead from maunga to moana. The work held the flooding force of Parawhenuamea as both release and renewal, exploring water as a medium through which the environment and the self might be reset.
What emerged was a quiet and powerful meditation on elemental forces, where flow became a language of healing, and the body a vessel for remembering.
Saturday 12 October 2024, 9 pm
Q Theatre - Loft
60 minutes, no interval
ASPiRE
Northern Dance Network
ASPiRE, presented by the Northern Dance Network, returned in its fifth edition as a vibrant and uplifting celebration of dance and the beauty of ageing.
The work stood as a testament to the enduring impulse to move, affirming that the body, at every stage of life, remains a site of expression, vitality, and joy. Created by seniors and for seniors, the performance brought together a diverse collective of dancers, many in their seventies, alongside others in their sixties and eighties, each carrying their own rhythm, memory, and presence.
Featuring groups such as Forever Young, SeniorsDANCE Company, Time to Dance, and Zimmers Dance Company, the programme unfolded as a tapestry of styles and stories. Each performance revealed a quiet resilience and a deep love of dance, where movement became both celebration and continuation.
ASPiRE offered not only a performance, but a living expression of creative ageing, where connection, strength, and joy moved together across time.
Sunday 13 October 2024, 2 pm
Q Theatre - Rangatira
60 minutes, no interval
Photography below by Nicole Dove. All images are copyright and owned by New Zealand Dance Festival Trust.
REALM of TEARS
Rewa Fowles
Renee Wiki
“Sometimes the best that art provides us is a suspension in time and space and a breaking of the rigidity that our capitalist colonial society forces us into. Without a doubt, Realm of Tears is exactly that and more.”- Zech Soakai
Crafted by Rewa Fowles, Realm of Tears unfolded as an immersive world that invited audiences to sit with their own complexities. It called forth the imperfect self, to be a tangiweto, to move through pleasure and sensuality, to laugh at intrusive thoughts, to step into rage, to feel unmoored, and to return, gently, to compassion and accountability.
Within a reality shaped by capitalism and individualism, where healing is often distanced from feeling, the work offered a rare sanctuary. It created space to breathe, to dwell within sensation, and to follow emotion as it unfolded, rather than seeking to resolve it.
Realm of Tears became a place where feeling was not only permitted, but honoured. It held space for those at the margins to gather, to be seen, and to move through processes of healing and becoming.
Sunday 13 October 2024, 6 pm
Q Theatre - Loft
60 minutes, no interval
RUA
The New Zealand Dance Company
“Finely tuned dancers take command of the stage; with crisp and assured execution of choreography that takes our imaginations into a dark absurdist realm.” - Lyne Pringle, Dominion Post
Rua unfolded as a powerful double bill, bringing together the distinct choreographic voices of Louise Pōtiki Bryant and Ross McCormack.
In Transit, by Louise Pōtiki Bryant, moved through the deep cultural memory of Māori ritual, drawing audiences into a layered world of heritage and identity. Through evocative sound and striking visual composition, the work resonated with a sense of continuity between past and present.
In contrast, Ross McCormack’s Matter entered a surreal and meticulously constructed landscape, where human obsession was examined through the tension between order and chaos. The work revealed a precise and immersive world, shaped through the interplay of movement, light, and sound.
Together, these works formed Rua, an evening of duality and depth, where two distinct artistic visions sat alongside one another, each extending the boundaries of contemporary dance in Aotearoa.
Thursday 17 October 2024, 7:30 pm
Friday 18 October 2024, 7:30 pm
Q Theatre - Rangatira
90 minutes, including 20 minutes interval
BURRBGAJA YALIRRA 2
Marrugeku
“From maps of the Country to ancient gods, Marrugeku’s showcase of new dance works, Burrbgaja Yalirra 2, allows its artists to explore the connections between ancestors and the present day.” - Chantal Nguyen
Burrbgaja Yalirra 2 unfolded as a powerful triple bill, tracing histories of relocation, adaptation, and survival through two fiercely physical solos and an arresting duo. Each work carried the presence of ancestors into contemporary space, where memory and movement converged.
Bloodlines, performed by Ses Bero and Stanley Nalo, emerged as a rhythmic meditation on Pacific life. Through grounded physicality and shared presence, the work held lineage as both inheritance and living force, speaking to connection across oceans, cultures, and generations.
Together, the works of Burrbgaja Yalirra 2 formed a compelling offering, where ancestral knowledge moved alongside contemporary experience, shaping a dialogue between past and present.
Thursday 17 October 2024, 6:00 pm
Friday 18 October, 9:00 pm
Q Theatre - Loft
80 minutes, no interval
Photography below by Asher Milgate. All images are copyright and owned by New Zealand Dance Festival Trust.
IN/TENSE
Alexa Wilson
“This is an important work, a voice we need to listen to and a performance to treasure. We do not see enough rigour and intellectual stimulus in dance here in our seemingly but not ‘untouched world’ of kiwi land. “” - Deirdre Tarrant, Theatre review, 2024
IN/TENSE unfolded as a poignant solo work that moved through themes of disparity, homelessness, and displacement. It asked, with quiet insistence, where the heart resides within the idea of home, and where home might be found within the heart.
The work traced the ways contemporary Western society distances itself from vulnerability, revealing the subtle and systemic act of “othering” those pushed to the margins. Through an intimate and considered performance, these tensions were held in the body, made visible through presence, restraint, and release.
Originally developed as a shorter work for Grace Exhibition Space in New York, IN/TENSE continued its evolution into a full-length performance, following its premiere at the inaugural Pōneke Festival of Contemporary Dance. In its ongoing development with Dot Dot Social, the work remained a living enquiry, shifting and expanding across contexts.
Thursday 17 October 2024, 9:00 pm
Friday 18 October 2024, 6:00 pm
Q Theatre - Loft
60 minutes, including 20 minutes interval
THE IDENTITY PROJEKT
Identity Dance Company (IDCO)
Projekt Team
Identity Dance Company (IDCO) and Projekt Team stood as pillars within the street dance landscape of Aotearoa, recognised for their unwavering commitment to authenticity, innovation, and the integrity of their craft. Across years of practice, both companies had built international presence, engaging with global artists while remaining grounded in their own communities.
Together, Projekt and IDCO reflected the multiplicity of Aotearoa, expressed through inclusive representation and a fearless approach to movement, ideas, and technology.
The Identity Projekt marked a celebration of the enduring relationship between these two collectives, tracing a shared history shaped by collaboration, trust, and creative exchange. What unfolded was more than a coming together of companies; it was a living expression of community and the evolving language of street dance, carried through bodies, rhythm, and time.
Saturday, 19 October 2024, 7:30 pm
Sunday, 20 October 2024, 7:30 pm
Q Theatre - Rangatira
60 minutes, no interval
SLIP
Rebecca Jensen
“Slip is a deeply satisfying work, cleverly constructing synthetic worlds in which Jensen, with great urgency and skill, attempts to refocus our attention.” - Rhys Ryan writes for Dance Australia
Slip unfolded as a duet between sound artist Aviva Endean and dancer and choreographer Rebecca Jensen, where sound, image, and time were loosened from their expected alignments. Within this layered work, the entanglement of all things came into focus, alongside the quiet threat of falling out of sync with history, environment, body, and one another.
Drawing on the illusion of Foley, the work reimagined the cinematic technique of constructed sound, using objects and gesture to mirror, distort, and disrupt perceived reality. Through moments of delay, dissonance, and slippage, connections were pulled apart and reconfigured, simplified, severed, and rewired until they hovered at the edge of recognition.
What emerged was a shifting landscape of perception, where coherence dissolved and reformed, asking the audience to sit within the instability of the present moment.
Saturday, 19 October 2024, 6:00 pm
Sunday, 20 October 2024, 6:00 pm
Q Theatre - Loft
60 minutes, no interval
Thin Paper, Autonomous Synapses, Nomads, Tokyo(ing)
Footnote New Zealand Dance
“Like watching the giant cosmos moving around; each planet, asteroid or piece of junk exuding its own innate nature” - Tania Kopytko
Kota Yamazaki, in collaboration with Footnote New Zealand Dance, presented a work that moved through the fluid and shifting nature of identity, loosening it from socially preconditioned notions of self. Language drifted across the stage, fragments of words gathered from the landscapes of Te Whanganui-a-Tara and the streets of Tokyo, appearing and dissolving like passing signals.
Building from his earlier work Fog, Nerves, Future, Ocean, Hello (Echoes), Yamazaki extended his choreographic enquiry into a new form, where movement unfolded as a continuous negotiation between inner and outer worlds.
Following its premiere in Nagoya and Tokyo, Thin Paper, Autonomous Synapses, Nomads, Tokyo(ing) arrived in Aotearoa as a global collaboration held in motion. For this presentation, Footnote welcomed guest artist Sean MacDonald, who stepped into Yamazaki’s role, carrying the work through a new body while maintaining its shifting, relational core.
Saturday, 19 October 2024, 9:00 pm
Sunday, 20 October 2024, 4:00 pm
Q Theatre - Loft
60 minutes, no interval
