Dance at the 2011 Auckland Arts Festival

Dance Programme

AUCKLAND ARTS FESTIVAL 2011

A stunning new contemporary work from Douglas Wright headlines the strongest and most exciting dance programme in the history of Auckland Arts Festival.  Premiering at the 2011 Festival, rapt is the 11th full-length work from Douglas Wright, one of this country’s most important artists, and a choreographer of international importance.  Wright describes rapt as a piece that “celebrates the dark radiant energies of the body [with] haunting unforgettable dances of serenity and power.”  Long time Wright collaborator Kilda Northcott is joined by a handpicked company of remarkable dancers to bring rapt to The Civic’s stage.

The Festival celebrates one of the world’s most influential dance nations with a showcase of four outstanding contemporary French works, under the banner FranceDanse.  This showcase of French contemporary dance makes up the Festival’s entire 2011 international dance programme and is presented in partnership with Culturesfrance.

Rounding out the programme is a dynamic work from Black Grace’s UrbanYOUTHMovement featuring some of New Zealand’s most talented emerging dancers.  Choreography is also a key element in two of the Festival’s most spectacular works, Sound of the Ocean (U Theatre of Taiwan) and Gaff Aff (Zimmermann and de Perrott).

Auckland will be the first destination outside of France to see a new production of Maguy Marin’s iconic May B, one of the great dance works of the 20th century.  Marin first presented May B more than three decades ago.  The brilliant Samuel Beckett-inspired piece has become one of her most beloved works and representative of the remarkable choreographic career of a choreographer who is “one of the giants of modern dance” (San Francisco Chronicle).

As part of ‘FranceDanse’, Marin is joined by three other companies, whose work is as diverse as their personalities, influences and backgrounds: Jerome Bel, Rachid Ouramdane and Gregory Maqoma.

Ouramdane’s sophisticated conceptual work, Loin… (Far…) which the choreographer performs himself, explores “the feeling of being a foreigner.”  Taking his own French Algerian background, Ouramdane looks at the relationship between colonialism, identity and violence in a manner that weaves together the personal and political, asking “what sensitivity is born out of this violence?” Broad-reaching in scope, the performance incorporates documentary imagery, uses extracts from his father’s diaries, brings in his mother’s voice, and includes testimony from victims of the Vietnam War.  It has been described by The Guardian as “stunning, transfiguring” and as having “an ineffable beauty.” Time Out New York recently described Ouramdane as “one of the most gripping artists working today.”

Jerome Bel, a cult figure in contemporary dance, makes his New Zealand premiere with his signature piece, The Show Must Go On.  This cutting edge work, set to a series of platinum pop songs, has provoked delighted and outraged audiences around the world in equal measures.  As with all of Bel’s work, the performance challenges preconceptions about what dance is.  In this piece he playfully interrogates the expectations of the audience.  Significantly this season of the work will be performed by a cast of 20 New Zealand performers – ranging from professional dancers to complete novices - rehearsed by members of Bel’s company.

Also in the FranceDanse programme is remarkable solo work, Beautiful Me, performed by renowned South African dancer Gregory Maqoma.  A talented choreographer himself, Maqoma here performs work by three of his contempories; Akram Khan (UK), Faustin Linyekula (Congo) and Vincent Mantsoe (South Africa).  The result blends unlikely elements – Michael Jackson’s moonwalk, contemporary Indian kathak and Afro-fusion – accompanied by live music from cello, violin, kora, percussion, blended with songs, chants and the evocative clicking of the Zulu language.

Bringing a fresh, local energy to the Festival’s dance programme are the young performers in Who Are You?, a new work from Black Grace Artistic Director Neil Ieremia.  Drawn from all over Auckland, and nearly every walk of life, and aged between 16 and 21 years, the young dancers perform a work inspired by a challenge from Ieremia – to prove his perceptions of their generation – complacent, lazy and over-consumers – wrong.  Who Are You? will be performed both in the central city and in West and South Auckland.