The Elegant Woman
Jennifer de Leon performs dance and witchery to play with your heart in 'The Elegant Woman' on Friday 13 May 5.30pm at The Pah Homestead, TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre. De Leon is one of New Zealand’s premier contemporary neo-classical dancers, possessing a style that is highly physical and expressive, with an ‘in-the-moment’ execution; a body conviction crucial when the solo dancer takes the stage.
In ‘The Elegant Woman’ the body melds with the music, engages with the space - the commitment, whether the dance be light and bright, or darker and more serious, is ever present. In this ever changing information-age, in the confusion and cultural complexity of it, Jennifer offers something else - the creative body infusing the movement with sensuality and intention. Hers is a deeply human answer to the in-authenticity that postmodernism brings to culture.
In review of ‘Twixt Tones’ Anne-Marie Daly-Peoples describes, “De Leon displayed a passion with regard to the 'knowing' of the body. She enveloped a powerful concupiscence with an arrant drive to achieve that perfect moment” (2010). Susi Curle wrote, “Her tiny and seemingly frail form belied an incredible strength both athletically and aesthetically and the sound of awe amongst us, the viewers, was potently tangible”…”This work skillfully wove a story about a dancer embracing age and maturity with elegant grace” (2010).
Jennifer de Leon is the founder of Poyema, NZ’s only liturgical dance company, and will aptly perform in the Drawing Room - the former chapel of the then Monte Cecilia Homestead. This concert is Jennifer’s latest work. The work has a maturity that brings depth to the presentation and also great finesse and delicacy of execution. What marks this program as different is the intensity of the performer’s engagement with her work and with the audience.
The Pah Homestead
TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre
72 Hillsborough Rd, Hillsborough, Auckland
Tickets on the door
Member Profile
TSB Bank Wallace Arts CentreThe TSB Bank Wallace Arts Centre is Auckland’s exciting new cultural destination. Located in the historic Pah Homestead in Monte Cecilia Park, Hillsborough, the arts centre opened to the public in August 2010.
Pah Homestead was fully restored by the Auckland City Council together with the generous support of TSB Bank from 2009 to 2010 as the new home of the James Wallace Arts Trust and its collection.
The arts centre hosts a changing programme of free exhibitions curated from the James Wallace Arts Trust collection as well as regional touring exhibitions. The arts centre will also run ongoing community education programmes targeting Auckland schools and the wider public.
An artist in residency programme in association with Otago University is an important component of the arts centre. This partnership also provides for exhibitions curated from the extensive collections of the Hocken Library.
Many thanks to the Auckland Decorative and Fine Arts Society and its members who provide ongoing support to the centre through the provision of volunteer docents.
