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)

By Rain Francis

Contemporary dance often has an aura of mystery about it. It’s not ballet, it’s not hip hop, and it seems to be different wherever you go. That’s one of the best things about it! Here Rain Francis talks to Sacha Copland, Artistic Director of New Zealand’s Java Dance Company, about the curious world of contemporary dance.

Java Dance Company was founded in 2003 by Sacha and fellow graduates of New Zealand School of Dance. It is based in Wellington but tours a lot around the country. Java’s mission is ‘to capture audiences with visceral, impressive dance that communicates’. This goal is realised by ‘creating and presenting original theatrical dance works built on dynamic physicality, character development and storytelling’.

Earlier this year, Java was at the Taranaki International Arts Festival performing two shows –  Back of the Bus and Pick a Path – a show created especially for children. Back of the Bus is a popular piece by the company. It has been presented all over New Zealand. It is performed on a moving bus that stops at different locations around the city it is in.

On this occasion, The Arts Festival organisers worked with a graffiti artist to paint the bus, and they spray-painted a cartoon of Java dancer Natalie Hona on the back of the bus. Natalie was stoked, saying “I haven’t been turned into a cartoon before!”

Sacha says this is something she loves about contemporary dance; it uses “such a wide variety of movement in lots of different contexts”. Java’s latest project was a show called RISE, where the performers made bread on stage, on a massive scale, with “an exploding wall of milk and honey, flour falling and water bursting from the ground”.

Sacha says of RISE, “It was the most holistically challenging project I’ve ever been a part of,  from working with volatile elements to collaborating with a composer to create a new 90 minute work integrating the live musicians, to addressing the question ‘what is universal’ while embedded in the bread-making process. I loved making RISE, working with a tactile space rather than a ‘clean’ surface. The cast were incredible and so willing to get amongst the mess.”

RISE had an international cast, epic design and all the fun of audience involvement. It required over 1000kgs of flour, a rock climbing wall that ran the length of the theatre, live singers and intense physicality. It explored how a community comes into existence and involved the dancers getting covered in flour, honey, water, and dough. The audience helped by kneading the bread, which was then baked.

Dancer Alana Sargent described the experience of working on such a unique show. “RISE for me was a massive learning curve and I enjoyed every second of it. I found myself in new and insane situations that pushed me and made me grow as an artist. It opened my mind to numerous possibilities creatively, and I was constantly learning. Dancing in physical elements of flour, water and golden syrup really challenged me as a performer. Never once did a show feel the same as the last. I believe this show will never stop evolving and improving. I am so pleased that I have had the opportunity to be part of the creative process of such an innovative show.”

OK, so far we have a dance performed in a moving vehicle, and a giant baking experiment. So, what exactly IS contemporary dance? The cool thing about it is everybody defines it differently, and there’s not really any right or wrong definition. Contemporary dance began as an answer to the stringent rules of classical ballet, and has evolved into something with virtually no boundaries. It is interpreted differently by everyone – performers and audience members alike.

Sacha defines contemporary dance as “an intensely physical way to express an idea. It uses influences from theatre, lots of different dance styles and visual art”. The only rule, she says, is that “it must keep changing as the world changes. It’s about exploring new ways to move.”

Because there are so few limitations, this style of dance can be really accessible to everyone, or it can be quite challenging. Sometimes people say they don’t understand it, but the thing to remember is, whatever a piece of art means to you, is what it means to you! This goes for dance, visual art, poetry and music. They’re all open to interpretation, and every interpretation is valid.

According to Sacha, the contemporary dance industry in NZ is reaching out to audiences and changing the perception that contemporary is mysterious and hard to understand. She says that Java has a “really theatrical style, so people can connect with the story as well as the physicality. Communicating through movement is the key.”

Java has a strong youth connection. They make shows specifically for teenagers and tour high schools nationally, performing as well as conducting dance and choreography workshops. In Term 2 next year they’ll be touring North Island schools with Survivor, a show that explores how basic instinct drives us all as we negotiate our place in the pecking order.

In February, Java will be heading off on its first international tour, to perform Back of the Bus at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. The company invites you to ride on a bus through the streets of Adelaide, as dancers propel themselves along the aisles and hang from the roof. What fun! Physical comedy, pure kinetic energy and outrageous scenarios will combine to create a magical mystery tour of the unexpected.

For more information, check out www.javadancecompany.co.nz and www.adelaidefringe.com.au.

This article was originally published in TEARAWAY Magazine – The Voice of New Zealand Youth. www.tearaway.co.nz