Performance Season 2024
Te Whaea Theatre: National Dance and Drama Centre, Wellington
Reviewed November 29 & December 1
With 2024 coming to a close, I caught two performances of New Zealand School of Dance’s (NZSD) Performance Season, the annual graduation showcase. The repertoire was evenly balanced between classical and contemporary; new choreographic commissions and restaged works – making for a delightfully varied evening of six short works that gave NZSD students a chance to shine.
The Waltz – The Sleeping Beauty was staged and rehearsed by classical tutor Robert Mills (after Petipa) and costumed in vividly contrasting pink and aqua green tutus (for the ladies) and matching tunic/tights combinations (for the men). Interestingly, these were designed in house by Head of the Costume Construction Course at NZ School of Drama Kaarin Slevin, and constructed by 2nd year costume construction students who study in the same building as the dance students.
The Waltz quite literally started on a high with an impressive series of buoyant lifts that fitted Tchaikovsky’s stirring score. The ensemble danced well and the three leading women (danced by 3rd year classical students Hilary An-Roddie, Olivia Platt and Mira Meijer – distinguished by short, classical tutus as opposed to the romantic length worn by the rest of the ensemble) showed the requisite strength and charm required by their soloist roles. An-Roddie and Platt are joining the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2025 alongside fellow 3rd year Angus O’Connell and 2023 NZSD graduate Joshua Douglas.
SHOWPONY! was choreographed by Matte Roffe – a NZSD alumni and former member of Australian Dance Theatre who currently teaches contemporary dance at NZSD. This work, for 13 female students, uses the "show pony" metaphor (a term that Roffe actually encountered years ago in a review of an ADT performance) to ask if the cost to performers of constantly chasing approval is worth it. There is a highly memorable opening scene in which five grinning performers slowly turn to despair and disappointment as a fictional review (written by Matte Roffe but combining material from three actual reviews) is read aloud in a voiceover by NZ critic Lyne Pringle. Despite being an ensemble piece, nearly every cast member gets a chance to shine with standout performances delivered by Molly Walker, Stella Clarkson, Gabrielle Arnold and 3rd year student Aleeya McFadyen-Rew – who is joining Dancenorth Australia in 2025. There are some excellent female duets, performed by Aylish Marshall/Lucy Thorogood and Aylin Atalay/Anna Hosking and a breathtaking moment where four students simultaneously run into aerial dive rolls over crouching peers.
S(EVEN) is a neo-classical work for seven female dancers which was initially choreographed in 2016 by the late Jenna Lavin (teacher, choreographer and artistic director of Ballet Academy East in NY). Her choreography is closely entwined with the music (Schubert’s Piano trio No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Sonatensatz) and it is light and playful in mood. Danced entirely en pointe, graduating 3rd year students Olivia Platt and Hilary An-Roddie both performed well (with An-Roddie excelling in a series of soaring grand jetes performed diagonally across the stage). First year student Katrina Casey displayed considerable strength and control which contrasted beautifully with a delightful softness in her port-de-bras and Orla Riches has an appealingly elegant quality to her movement.
All Eyes Open is an expressive, lyrical work for 20 female dancers choreographed by NZSD alumni and Co-Artistic Director of Okareka Dance Company, Taane Mete. Prior to watching – when I read in the program notes that this work is a humanitarian response to the occupation in Gaza, I steeled myself for a much bleaker work and was pleasantly surprised to see so much beauty, and even hope, coming through. Mete has a talent for moving a large cast around the stage, and creates a kaleidoscope of patterns in his choreography. The rippling movement of the dancers’ long skirts (designed by Anna de Geus) adds to this work's mesmerising effect and Eden Mulholland’s stirring music has a gravitas which holds your attention. Anna Hosking and Aylin Atalay performed particularly well.
Zoe Dunwoodie’s It’s not Me, It’s Me is about self, and identity. Inspired by a drawn artwork (The Three Brides by Jan Toorop) the cast of 16 are dressed in white and Dunwoodie’s choreography periodically singles out a single dancer against the group. One memorable scene saw Anna Hosking standing, surrounded by the others. Every time she reached upward, they would move towards her in a surging wave of movement to pull her arms back down.
The final work was Tim Podesta’s Forte which was restaged for NZSD by Robert Mills. Danced by five NZSD students, Forte is expressive, stylish and sophisticated. It has a contemporary feel while being firmly grounded in classical vocabulary and utilises music from four different composers (Ben Lukas Boysen, Daniel Brandt, Nils Frahm and Olafur Arnolds) in a work about solitude and the search for connection. First year Liezl Herrera has easy extensions and a mature, seemingly fearless approach to the role. In contrasting duets with Ian Lin (Lin Xi-Yuan) and Mike Hui (Hui Ho Yin) that bookend the work, the dancers move from tenderly halting uncertainty to a more assertive, determined duet.
Early on there is a stunning solo danced by the talented Mike Hui (who has been selected to compete in the Prix de Lausanne 2025). Ella Marshall unfolds her limbs with an expressive, dynamic quality that is thrilling to watch, also springing elegantly at one point from a full plie into a half-turning attitude with no apparent effort. And Hollie Knowles is stylish and eloquent – just needing a bit more strength and co-ordination to control her long limbs in some sections.
All in all, NZSD’s Performance Season 2024 has a lot to offer both audiences and the dancers cast within it. As usual, it was performed in the Drama School’s theatre (which is located in the same large building as NZSD) but NZSD are currently fundraising for a new black box theatre specifically for dance (with the flexibility to also provide two additional studio spaces). This new theatre is currently being built in another part of the building, with a planned opening for 2027 timed to coincide with the school’s 60th anniversary. As well as providing much needed additional studio space this will remove NZSD’s current need to rent the Drama School’s theatre for their performances as well as giving them an additional source of revenue by hiring it out.
– GERALDINE HIGGINSON
The Performance Season ran from November 20 to 30.