Subtle Dances – Show Programme, Auckland Arts Festival 2021

Subtle Dances BALLETCOLLECTIVE AOTEAROA IN COLL ABOR ATION WITH NZTRIO

BRUCE MASON CENTRE

WORLD PREMIERE

8—9 April 2021

TĒNĀ KOUTOU Kia ora and welcome to this inaugural season of the BalletCollective Aotearoa in collaboration with NZTrio. We are so honoured and thrilled to be part of this exciting line up of artists and are hugely grateful to Shona McCullagh and the whole team at Auckland Arts Festival for all their support and encouragement.

Wellington-based BalletCollective Aotearoa is a small group of diverse individuals with a passion for dance in New Zealand. We collaborate to explore the possibilities of creating homegrown work in a contemporary ballet style. Our vision is to help develop pathways for emerging talent to step into the industry and hone their craft, mentored by those already established in their career.

We wish to express our uniqueness and explore ways of telling our own stories from Aotearoa New Zealand. We aspire to make ballet accessible and relevant to everyone living within our multi-layered society and to help enrich our identity and touch people’s lives.

This programme would not have been possible without the the creativity and talent of my three incredible choreographers who have so generously given so much of themselves to this process. I am so grateful for their belief in my vision and adaptability to the difficult

process caused by the disruptions of 2020. While COVID-19 made for a difficult year, with restrictions on the dancers to rehearse at all Alert Levels except Alert Level 1, we have come through this with the most exciting opportunity be launched at Auckland Arts Festival.

We are thrilled to be collaborating with the wonderful NZTrio and acknowledge the work they do to develop homegrown contemporary classical music and bringing music to many different audiences. This is a perfect fit for our vision and we have appreciated working with such a high-calibre group of performing artists. It is an honour to be able to move to the wonderful compositions by Rhian Sheehan, John Psathas and Claire Cowan, and we thank them for their creativity and allowing us to share this within a different context.

A huge thank you to my passionate, talented, resilient and extremely hard working dancers and their huge contribution to this process and keeping our project alive.

Thank you to all those who have supported us throughout this past year.

We cannot wait to finally dance for you.

Ngā mihi maioha, Turid Revfeim Artistic Director/Producer balletcollective aotearoa

1hr 35mins inc interval Pictured (cover, opposite): Abigail Boyle & William Fitzgerald. Image credits: Celia Walmsley

Last Time We Spoke Last Time We Spoke is a contemplation on absence, memory and the joy that can be found when we embrace community.

This work is the product of a collaborative process whereby each artist has composed sections of movement to be sculpted and shared with the group. So, Last Time We Spoke is also about the embodied memories of making and moving together over the course of a year. Each rehearsal process we have had to begin again, recalling and recreating what we made previously, speaking

movement memories into each other’s bodies. In many ways our creative process has echoed the themes of the work. The process has called upon our sensitivities, yearnings and uncertainties. We have lost, laughed and forgotten together. We have been becoming and departing from ourselves throughout.

It is a pleasure and a gift to work with music from Rhian Sheehan’s 2018 album A Quiet Divide. The NZTrio brings breath to the haunting intimacy I found so captivating since my first listen of these pieces. — Sarah Knox

Sarah Knox Choreographic Direction & Content

Rhian Sheehan Music

Sarah Knox is a choreographer, teacher and scholar based in Tāmaki Makaurau, where she is a Lecturer and Doctoral Candidate in Dance Studies at The University of Auckland. She is a 2001 graduate of the New Zealand School of Dance having specialised in both classical ballet and contemporary dance.

She also holds a Postgraduate Diploma and Masters degree in Creative and Performing Arts (Dance Studies) from The University of Auckland.

Rhian Sheehan is an award-winning music producer and screen composer from Wellington, New Zealand, known for his unique fusion of emotive instrumental atmospheric postrock with ambient electronica and modern chamber music.

His long list of solo albums, EPs and soundtracks has gained him a solid fan base around the globe (40 million streams on Spotify alone). His work as a screen composer is diverse, having worked on a long list of local and international projects, actively writing scores for a wide variety of films, television, video games, documentaries, advertising, multimedia exhibits, 3D planetarium shows and even a state-of-the-art roller coaster ride. Eminent US music reviewer John Diliberto (Echoes) called his Stories From Elsewhere album “a modern ambient chamber music masterpiece of quietly epic dimensions.”

Knox has choreographed works for Footnote New Zealand Dance, The University of Auckland, Tempo Dance Festival, the New Zealand Fringe Festival and Dance Nucleus in Singapore.

In 2017 Sarah won the Ballet Foundation of New Zealand’s Harry Haythorne Choreographic Award, for her work Between There and Now for dancers of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. She has had an extensive career in the arts in Aotearoa including working with numerous contemporary choreographers and companies, including Black Grace, Footnote New Zealand Dance, and The New Zealand Dance Company. Her teaching practice focuses on dance techniques, choreography, performance and professional practice. She is also heavily involved in service, advocacy and leadership roles within the wider New Zealand and international dance community.

Katie Day Costume Design Katie Day is a fashion designer and writer from Dunedin.

Reflection, observation, embodiment and intuition guide her design process. Day’s designs inspire conscious connection with one’s inherent values and identity, the community around us and the land in which we dwell. Sustainability is also of high importance with the use of natural fibres that can be created and returned to the earth, not damaging the environment. At the conclusion of 2019, Day debuted her graduate fashion collection ‘Open Space’ alongside a short fashion film and received a Bachelor of Design (Distinction) from Otago Polytechnic. Currently, she is continuing to expand her design knowledge, completing post-graduate studies in Design at Otago Polytechnic and is the Fashion Writer for the Otago Daily Times.

Helix

preceded by John Psathas’ Island Songs (finale)

The seeds of ideas for this work were planted almost a decade ago when I first heard the NZTrio’s commission and recording of John Psathas’ score Helix. Instantly captured by its frenetic rhythms, intense dynamism and the remarkable emotional swell of the performance, I was intrigued by the familiar recognition in myself that arose. It is one that has been with me my whole life, a completely instinctive first response to music; to move, and more specifically, to dance. It is one so compelling that it seems almost a part of my personal DNA.

The double helix structure of our DNA is what holds the genetic code of our biological lineage. Psathas’ choice of title for the score, which I have kept – Helix – is reflective of these parallels in his ‘millennia leaping journey’ of a piece. It speaks to me of a conversation with his own heritage through his work, and also in the clear physicality of the performance required by the music. His meticulous study paints the expressivity and humanity of the folkloric, the existential and the ancient mediterranean in its sound worlds. It is poetically synonymous with a sense of legacy that traces our personal —

Cameron McMillan Choreographer

John Psathas Music, Helix

Cameron McMillan is a New Zealand-born, London-based choreographer, dance artist and movement director, with an extensive international performance and creative career spanning contemporary dance, ballet, film and commercial fields.

From genre-crossing projects with jazz legends Michael Brecker and Joshua Redman, to an innovative e-book scoring collaboration with Salman Rushdie, from an unforgettable recording session with the Grand Mufti in Paris’s Grand Mosque, to a Billboard classical-chart-topping album with System of a Down, John Psathas’ musical journey weaves through myriad genres and has moved concert audiences in more than 50 countries.

Trained in New Plymouth and at the Australian Ballet School, he danced with the Royal New Zealand Ballet and English National Ballet, before expanding into contemporary dance, first joining Rambert and pursuing a freelance career including Bonachela Dance Company, Sydney Dance Company, Australian Dance Theatre and London’s Sadler’s Wells Theatre, amongst others.

Developing his choreographic practice throughout his performance career, he now primarily creates independent projects and commissioned work internationally for companies, festivals and leading dance institutions, including the Royal New Zealand Ballet, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Rambert, Brisbane Festival (Queensland Ballet, Dance North, EDC), Royal Opera House, Tempo Dance Festival, BBC, Channel 4, Milwaukee Ballet, Balett Pécs, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, TrinityLaban’s Transitions Dance Company, Palucca Hochschule Für Tanz, HfMDK ZuKT Frankfurt and Rambert School.

He has held the positions of Associate Artist for Dance East (UK), Artist in Residence at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, a Sadler’s Wells Summer University supported artist, and in 2012 he was the first dance artist to be awarded a New Generation Artist by the New Zealand Arts Foundation.

Psathas’ early career collaborations included working with such luminaries as Sir Mark Elder, Kristjan Jarvi, the Takacs Quartet, Lara St. John, the Netherlands Blazers Ensemble, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Edo de Wart, Joanna MacGregor, Pedro Carneiro, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and many more. Then followed a period of intense creative exploration in the worlds of electronica and jazz, and a series of mega-projects (such as composing for the opening ceremony of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games).

The works of this Greek New Zealand composer now emerge from a dazzling 21st-century backdrop, where dynamic collaboration with creative masters from all corners of the globe results in outcomes that are visionary, moving and inspired. Psathas’ music has achieved a level of international success unprecedented in New Zealand history, and he is now considered one of the three most important living composers of the Greek Diaspora.

inheritances and lived experiences, revealing the invisible connections to the people and places we hold across time.

and special colour palette of New Zealand, to thoughts on absence, return and recognition in the Homeric ‘Return of Ulysses’.

As I write this, the work is still emerging, with fundamental relationships to both the complexity of the score, and a malleable hybrid language underpinned by balletic form, I am drawing from a multiplicity of sources – from diving into the archives of my past choreographic work and considering my own and the dancers’ embodied movement knowledges, to the unique feeling of recognising the bright crisp texture of the light

By connecting the spiralling structures of nature, movement and time, and by acknowledging the ephemeral qualities of memory shared by live music and dance, Helix is an abstract exploration of a kind of ‘DNA’ of experience. Recognising personal histories in the dancing body and the swirling mix of what makes us who we are, and what and where we call home. — Cameron McMillan

Elishia Ward Costume Design

AD D ITIO N A L CR E D I T S ( A L L WO R K S )

Elishia Ward was born and raised in Aotearoa and is currently living in Wellington, starting her career with an emphasis on costuming for dance. From the early years of her life, all the way through high school, she practiced many styles of dance with ballet being her favourite of the disciplines. While studying at Victoria University of Wellington, she began to create costumes for the joy of creation. After graduating in 2016, she focused most of her time on this hobby with a focus on how to create costumes that were made for movement.

In 2019 she began her studies in the costume construction course at Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School.

Lighting Design Alan Wilson

Graduating in 2020, Ward is now fresh-faced and eager to continue working in the dance industry of Aotearoa to help bring life to the works of the many talented artists in the community. Combining her passions for dance and costuming, she is very happy and eager to be designing and creating for BalletCollective Aotearoa’s Homemade Jam project.

Lighting Operator Nick Rowland Sound Operator Glen Ruske (BounceNZ) Sound Mix, Subtle Dances Sarah Belkner, Richard Belkner, Niall Cameron, Claire Cowan Choreographic Content & Performance, Last Time We Spoke Callum Phipps, Eloise Moore, Honor Christian-Slane, Kit Reilly, Tabitha Dombroski, Tsuyumi Wilson-Travis, William Fitzgerald, Zachary Healy Music, Last Time We Spoke A Quiet Divide by Rhian Sheehan, transcribed for NZTrio by Ryan Youens Tracks: Elegy for the Past / Lost Letters / April / Last Time We Spoke / The Absence of You / Someplace

Subtle Dances Loughlan Prior continues to develop his strong artistic relationship with acclaimed Kiwi composer Claire Cowan. Their new work, Subtle Dances, explores a set of three contrasting atmospheres for piano trio, fused with a synthetic sound-mix. Flirtation, nervousness, exhibitionism, ‘peacocking’ – the unspoken rituals performed in complex courtship are explored in every note and subtle dance.

Both sassy and hypnotic, the ballet presents itself as a continually shifting collection of landscapes for human interaction. Inspired by traditional partner dance styles (ballroom and latin dance), the work slowly devolves into a physical language all of its own, where the lines of gender and sexuality are erased.

Loughlan Prior Choreographer

Claire Cowan Music, Subtle Dances

Described by Dance Aotearoa New Zealand as “a creative tour de force,” Loughlan Prior is an award-winning choreographer, filmmaker and teacher based in Pōneke/ Wellington. After graduating from the New Zealand School of Dance in 2009, he joined the Royal New Zealand Ballet. He began to develop his choreographic practice, becoming the first recipient of the Ballet Foundation of New Zealand’s Harry Haythorne Choreographic Award (2015) and a Creative New Zealand Tup Lang Choreographic Award winner (2016).

Claire Cowan is at the forefront of composition in New Zealand.

Her talent was acknowledged early on in her career by significant commissions and awards from orchestras such as Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and NZSO National Youth Orchestra while still a student at university. She has since gone from strength to strength as a composer, winning a prestigious Silver Scroll for her first Television series soundtrack Hillary, being awarded the APRA Professional Development Award for Film and TV music in 2017, and winning ‘Best Original Score’ at the New Zealand Television Awards in 2020 for the drama Runaway Millionaires. In 2019 she completed music for Hansel & Gretel, the first ballet score ever commissioned from a female composer in the history of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, and more recently released it on CD with the NZSO. Her classical concert work is unique in that it seamlessly merges art music and popular idioms in a way that is both natural and accessible.

As a result, her music offers a very strong connection to audiences.

Prior has delivered numerous live and digital projects for a diverse range of Kiwi companies and creative partners, including Te Papa National Museum, iD Fashion Week, WGT LUX Light Festival, Tempo Festival, Zambesi, New Zealand String Quartet and TV3’s Dancing with the Stars.

In 2019 he created the highly acclaimed Hansel & Gretel, his first full-length production. He has presented large-scale works across New Zealand as well as in Australia, Germany, Singapore, Canada, Denmark and the United States. Prior is also the Artistic Director of Lo | Co Arts, an inter-arts collective established in partnership with long-time artistic collaborator Claire Cowan, Creative Director of Prior-Visual, a project-based film group, and Choreographer in Residence at the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

William Fitzgerald Costume Design Born and raised in Australia, William Fitzgerald grew up dancing and designing side by side. After training with the Kim Harvey School of Dance in Canberra, and the New Zealand School of Dance in Wellington, he joined the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2014, where he performed across New Zealand and internationally to critical acclaim. He has also appeared and designed for a number of dance films. From a young age Fitzgerald has designed and constructed his own clothing, exploring the fashion world and how it interacts with the expression of identity. Subtle Dances is his third collaboration as Costume Designer with Loughlan Prior, following The Appearance of Colour (2019) for Queensland Ballet, and They/Them (2018) for Grand Rapids Ballet.

BALLETCOLLECTIVE AOTEAROA

The BalletCollective Aotearoa is a new project-based contemporary ballet company, made up of some of New Zealand’s leading professional ballet dancers, exciting young graduates and student dancers seconded from the New Zealand School of Dance.

Turid Revfeim Artistic Director/Producer After a 20-year performance career as a dancer in both Europe and with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, Turid Revfeim has had a further 20 years of experience as a ballet coach and rehearsal director.

She has been involved in the dance industry in New Zealand for nearly all of her professional life. Trained at New Zealand’s National School of Ballet (now New Zealand School of Dance), she began her professional career with the Royal New Zealand Ballet before heading to Europe and performing in the Koblenz Ballett, Germany for five years. Returning to New Zealand, she became a soloist with the RNZB, then Artistic Co-ordinator and, for 11 years, the company’s Ballet Mistress. She has not only coached and restaged ballets, but has also choreographed a number of works for the RNZB. She has a Bachelor of Arts in Dance and wrote the history of the New Zealand School of Dance for its 50th anniversary.

Acknowledgements Other dancers involved with the BalletCollective Aotearoa Subtle Dances development season: Caitlin Halmarick, Dominic Burrows, Kate Cockerton-Holmes, Layne Hampson, Tessa Karle, Timothy Ching; Creative New Zealand; Garry Trinder and the New Zealand School of Dance; Te Whaea Services; LOD Studios, Mt Cook, Wellington; Boosted Arts Foundation; Celia Walmsley @ Stagebox Photography; Sarah Davies @ Sarah Kaye Photography; Caroline Bindon; Charlie Unwin/Dunedin Arts Festival; Carla van Zon; Philip Tremewan; Lesley Bandy, Primarily Dance; Lo | Co Arts; Chamber Music New Zealand; Gavin Underhill, Royal New Zealand Ballet; Bloch Australia; Vivencio Samblaceno; Qi Huan; Irina Kouzminova, Anna MacBride, Philip O’Malley; Courtenay Studios; Samantha Wright (Deans Associates); Toni Westaway; Sandra Norman; Glenn Horsfall; Jennifer Shennan; Anne Sudell; Emma Cosgrave, Hosanna Ball and Maddison Cronin; everyone who donated to our Boosted Campaign; and our supporters:

Kia kōrero te katoa o te tinana

Production Team Eventsuite Ltd Production Manager Alan Wilson Stage Manager Janina Panizza Eventsuite Ltd offers a range of operational, strategic and artistic services for theatre, events and film production. As a stage manager Janina Panizza has called from the corner for international and local tours; from Vienna to Twizel; from solo performances to stadium events. Alan Wilson has over 30 years of lighting design and production experience both here and overseas. We enjoy working with people who make us think, laugh and especially those who make us coffee. We believe that collaboration is the key to excellence and ingenuity. This project is a wonderful opportunity to bring our production experience to the vibrant storytelling of BalletCollective Aotearoa.

Wardrobe Supervisor Elishia Ward Education & Outreach – TheFridayCompany Brigitte Knight (Education Manager), Rebecca Hale Company Physiotherapist Sophie Ryan Interns from the New Zealand School of Dance Tsuyumi Wilson-Travis Zachary Healy

NZTRIO

DANCERS

Described as a “national treasure” and “New Zealand’s most indispensable ensemble” (William Dart, NZ Herald), NZTrio is renowned for its eclectic repertoire, outstanding talent and warm kiwi stage presence. Any preconceptions of classical music being stuffy or intimidating are smashed by edgy repertoire, venue ambiance and post-concert manaakitanga. Bringing together three incredibly accomplished artists – Amalia Hall (violin), Ashley Brown (cello) and Somi Kim (piano) – every NZTrio performance powerfully reaffirms the importance and cathartic nature of a live musical experience in today’s digital world. Expect to be affected.

A respected ambassador of new compositional works, NZTrio has championed over 50 new commissions to date (more than 2/3 from New Zealand composers) and showcases these around the country and overseas. They enthusiastically welcome collaborative opportunities, with many projects past and future spanning the arts spectrum of visual arts (Simon Ingram 2021), animated film (David Downes, 2009), contemporary dance (New Zealand Dance Co., 2012/13; BalletCollective Aotearoa, 2021), theatre (Massive Company, 2013), voice (Simon O’Neill, 2016), as well as cross-cultural musical works with masters of Māori taonga puoro, Chinese guzheng and Cambodian traditional instruments.

The group has also established two mentorship programmes that reach out to high school musicians and tertiary composers nationally as well as an ever-expanding catalogue of recorded work. Critical acclaim includes a Tui for Best Classical Artist at the 2017 Vodafone NZ Music Awards and two citation awards: the KBB Music/CANZ citation (2012) and the Lilburn Trust Citation (2017), both for outstanding services to New Zealand Music.

Manager Jessica Duirs Assistant Manager Sue Nelson

Acknowledgements

Abigail Boyle Abigail Boyle was born and trained in New Zealand, joining the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2006. She has received plaudits for her performances in both classical and contemporary works and inspired many choreographers to create roles especially for her.

During her time with RNZB, Boyle danced soloist and principal roles.

Her principal roles include Carmen in Carmen, Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty, Myrtha in Giselle and Ada in Jiří Bubeníček’s The Piano: the ballet.

Boyle has been credited as “possibly one of New Zealand’s finest stage artists of recent years” and is recognised for her authentic, honest, fluid and expressive style. Her final ballet, Artemis Rising, was written as a celebration of her career.

Critics acclaimed her “power, sensitivity and effortless grace,” concluding that “Boyle is emerging from a remarkable thirteen year career... a woman and an artist in ascension.”

Pictured: Abigail Boyle.

Image credit: Celia Walmsley

Medhi Angot

Nicholas Tredrea

Bjӧrn Åslund

Born in France, Medhi Angot trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School. At 17, He was invited by the director of the English National Ballet in London to join the company where he danced as a soloist in productions of Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle and The Nutcracker. After five years dancing in England, he took up an opportunity to join the Royal New Zealand Ballet to dance the role of Basilio in Don Quixote, his first principal role in a full-length ballet. He worked with the company for five years, adding more soloist and principal roles to his repertoire before moving back to France in 2013 to join the Nice Opera Ballet as a principal dancer. While in Nice, Angot continued to dance iconic classical roles such as James in La Sylphide along with works by neoclassical and contemporary choreographers. He has toured to many countries during his career, including Russia, China, Italy, Spain and Australia.

Originally from New Zealand, Nicholas Tredrea began training at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

Upon graduating, he worked with various companies in including; Opera Australia and Leigh Warren & Dancers, and with various projects with independent artists Dean Walsh and Lisa McDonnell. In 2014 he partook in Sydney Dance Company’s pre-professional programme.

Bjӧrn Åslund is a multidisciplinary freelance dancer, performer and collaborator. A graduate for the New Zealand School of Dance, they have worked with Legs on the Wall, Java Dance company and Colossal productions, to name a few. They also featured in Loughlan Prior and William Fitzgerald’s film Serpentine. As a creator and choreographer of their own work, Plato’s Atlantis featured as part of Situations in Play at the 2020 Wellington Fringe Festival. Åslund performs regularly as a drag and cabaret artist under the persona the Everchanging Boy, has toured New Zealand with Glitter Garden and is the reigning title holder of Mister Burlesque Aotearoa.

Tredrea moved to the UK in 2016 to pursue his Honours in dance from Rambert School. Since graduating in 2017 he has toured with DeNada Dance Theatre and Rosie Kay Dance Company, as well as working with a range of independent choreographers including Cameron McMillan and Kirill Burlov. In 2019 he worked as a swing for INALA on the West End with choreographer Mark Baldwin, with Rambert Company and with immersive theatre company Reuben Feels. In 2020 he had started research and development on the show Carmen, choreographed by Didi Veldman and featuring Natalia Osipova. Tredrea was working with the Royal Opera House in the production of Jenufa which unfortunately did not proceed due to COVID-19.

Pictured (left-to-right): Medhi Angot; Callum Phipps; Bjӧrn Åslund; Tabitha Dombroski, William Fitzgerald, Abigail Boyle; Eloise Moore, Honor Christian-Slane. Image credits: Sarah Kaye

Callum Phipps Originally from Newcastle, Australia, Callum Phipps moved to New Zealand to train at the New Zealand School of Dance. Here he learned and expanded his repertoire which resulted him performing featured roles in the 2019 New Zealand School of Dance graduation season.

Phipps graduated from the New Zealand school of Dance in 2019 and joined the BalletCollective Aoteroa for their first development season Homemade Jam. He also performed with Primarily Dance in the Grooves! season, performing in Westport, Blenheim and Nelson.

Tabitha Dombroski

Kit Reilly

Honor Christian-Slane

Tabitha Dombroski completed her full-time training with The John Cranko School in Germany after receiving her certificate in dance at the New Zealand School of Dance. In her time training she fell in love with choreography and coaching, choreographing over 10 solos performed in Spain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, USA and Ukraine.

She was also the first student in 10 years to have three of her own works performed at the gala on the Stuttgart Opera House stage. After graduating Dombroski worked in Switzerland with Swiss Offspring Ballet, until COVID-19 brought her home. Since then she has had the greatest pleasure in joining BalletCollective Aotearoa and also working with Primarily Dance, starting her freelance journey. She teaches adult ballet and contemporary for the aDvANCE programme at EnPointe Dance Academy and is also studying a bachelor of Science in Psychology.

Kit Reilly is a graduate of the New Zealand School of Dance, majoring in Contemporary Dance. His highlights from his time at the NZSD include performing in Political Mother by Hofesh Shechter and travelling to New York and Shanghai in his third year to be a part of the Metamorphosis International Dance Residency, led by European choreographers Iratxe Ansa and Igor Bacovich.

Honor Christian-Slane is a dancer from Wellington, and has been a member of BalletCollective Aotearoa since March 2020. They received a Diploma in Dance Performance from the New Zealand School of Dance in 2019, majoring in classical ballet.

William Fitzgerald See Subtle Dances, costume design.

Since graduating, Reilly has been involved in a variety of projects including music videos, dancing in the Rambert Dance Company installation in London, and working with New Zealand-based choreographer Malia Johnston for the 2018 season of RUSHES. In 2018 he began to create his first full length choreographic work Utopia #9. The work features a selfcomposed music score and premiered at Tempo Dance Festival in October 2019, and later toured Wellington to further critical success.

In 2019 Reilly collaborated with Dance Plant Collective for Tūrama Festival (as a dancer and composer) and for their residency at Lucy Guerin Inc in Melbourne. He travelled to Perth for STRUT Dance’s Crystal Pite intensive, attended Anouk van Dijk’s Countertechnique workshop and Footnote Dance’s Choreolab. October 2020 saw Reilly being granted the North Harbour Club AIMES Arts award – sponsored by ASB.

In July 2020, Christian-Slane received a three-month contract with the Wellington School of Drawing as a model. An exhibition of the works created by the artists and the models was held in December and later in October. Christian-Slane also toured with Primarily Dance performing in Grooves! in Blenheim, Westport and Nelson.

Eloise Moore Eloise Moore moved to New Zealand from the Sunshine Coast, Australia in 2018 to begin training at the New Zealand School of Dance. She recently graduated from the school with a diploma in Dance Performance in 2020.

One of her major dancing achievements includes performing Curious Alchemy in 2019, choreographed by Loughlan Prior and performing the lead role of the ‘Sylph’ in La Sylphide in the 2020 New Zealand School of Dance graduation season.

MUSICIANS

Amalia Hall NZTrio: Violin

Somi Kim NZTrio: Piano

Ashley Brown NZTrio: Cello

Concertmaster of Orchestra Wellington, Amalia Hall has received widespread acclaim for her ability to move audiences with her “sumptuous and sweet tone,” inherent musicality and natural facility. At the age of nine she made her debut with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra; by the end of her teens she had won all of the major national awards in New Zealand, and has further won multiple laureate prizes at important international competitions, including the Joseph Joachim Competition and Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians.

On top of being a regular soloist for orchestras in New Zealand and abroad, her extensive performance experience includes concerti, recitals and chamber music throughout Europe, USA, Asia, South Africa, Mexico and New Zealand, and recording chamber music for Bridge Records and Atoll Records. She has held teaching positions at the University of Waikato and given masterclasses at universities and conservatories in Italy, England and Mexico. Born and raised in New Zealand, Hall studied at the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music with Pamela Frank and Joseph Silverstein, preceded by studies at the University of Auckland with Dimitri Atanassov. She plays on the ‘Baron Knoop’ Vincenzo Rugeri violin from c. 1700, generously on loan from a private benefactor.

South Korean-born New Zealand pianist Somi Kim has established herself as one of today’s most highly regarded and versatile young pianists, with a string of competition successes and an extensive concert experience.

An Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, Kim graduated with an Advanced Diploma in Performance and Master of Arts with Distinction, receiving the HRH Princess Alice the Duchess of Gloucester’s Prize, a DipRAM and the Christian Carpenter Prize for the Best Recital.

Acclaimed as a musician of “unimpeachable artistry,” Ashley Brown is one of New Zealand’s leading soloists, collaborators, chamber musicians and recording artists. He is a founder of NZTrio and a passionate advocate for New Zealand music. His teachers have included Alexander Ivashkin, Aldo Parisot and William Pleeth helping him to success in auditions, competitions and awards, both local and international. His musical curiosity has led him from an Artist Diploma at Yale to a Doctorate of Musical Arts exploring the collaborative relationship between composer and performer, and onward to sharing the stage with composers and artists as diverse as Dame Gillian Whitehead, Moana Maniapoto, Michael Houstoun, Kristian Jaarvi and Neil Finn. He continues to enjoy a musical career that leaves no colour of the musical spectrum unexplored.

Brown plays the 1762 William Forster ‘Liberte’ cello.

Sought after as a chamber musician, song accompanist and répétiteur, Kim is a staff pianist at the International Holland Music Sessions, International Vocal Competition ’s-Hertogenbosch, Gisborne International Music Competition and the New Zealand Opera School. In recital, Kim’s recent and future appearances include Het Concertgebouw, Slovak Philharmonic, Wigmore Hall, St. John’s Smith Square, Cadogan Hall, and the Edinburgh Fringe and Oxford Lieder Festivals. She will make her debut with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in June, playing Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F.

Pictured (left-to-right): Amalia Hall, Somi Kim, Ashley Brown.

Image credit: James Davies

AUCKLAND ARTS FESTIVAL Auckland Arts Festival / Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki champions changemaking, the environment, ambitious ideas, powerful voices, and unique experiences that open our eyes, our hearts, and our minds.

The Festival programme reflects our contemporary, multicultural city and country with its many communities and influences. It challenges artists and audiences to be bold and explore new ways of reflecting the world we live in. Through the work of the incredible artists of Aotearoa, we aim to unify, uplift and inspire the people of Tāmaki Makaurau and all who visit.

Chief Executive David Inns

Technical Manager Nick Tomlin

Artistic Director Shona McCullagh

Technical Administrator Anna Bennington

MNZM, Arts Foundation Laureate

Pou Tikanga Eynon Delamere Kaihautū Māori Ataahua Papa Head of Programming Steph Walker Education & Community Programme Manager Johnny Hui Project Coordinator – Visual Arts Ariane Craig-Smith Programme Coordinators – Access & Inclusion Alex Lodge Natalie Braid (from Dec 2020)

A globally recognised celebration of art and culture taking place each March in New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland Arts Festival will be presented for the 13th time in 2021.

We welcome you!

Artist & Logistics Manager Megan Andrews

Patron The Governor General, Her Excellency The Right Honourable Dame Patsy Reddy,

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GNZM, QSO

Board of Trustees John Judge (Chair) Rick Carlyon Angela Clatworthy Evan Davies Sarah Judkins Graham Tipene Fred Ward Angela Watson

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Reception/ Office Assistant Jesse Quaid Office Assistant Andrea Bartlett

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