Tempo Dance Festival

The tradition & historical record

Tempo Dance Festival is an annual pan-genre professional dance festival held in Auckland, New Zealand and is the 'longest standing annual dance event' of New Zealand, founded in 2003. ¹

Tempo Dance Festival started in 2003 from an initiative from the Northern Dance Network, originally named the Auckland Dance Festival (2000-2002). New Zealand Dance Festival Trust is a registered charitable trust that operates under the trading name of Tempo Dance Festival. Part of the mission of Tempo Dance Festival is to, "champion diversity and inclusion and enrich and connect diverse communities through the language of dance". ¹

Past directors have included Sonja Bright (2000-2004), Mary Jane O'Reilly (2006-2011), Celia Walmsley, 2012-2014, Carrie Rae Cunningham 2015-2018. Cat Ruka was appointed in February 2019 and left at the end of 2020. In March 2021 there were seven new trustee's appointed. As at September 2021 the trustees were Aaron Huata, Cathy Livermore, Jeremy Poi, Liora Bercovitch, Olivia Taouma, Piripi Morunga, Elisabeth Vaneveld, Tia Louise Reihana and Paul Lee Young. Funders of the festival include Creative New Zealand, Foundation North and Auckland Council. Past trustees include Dr Nicole Bassett, Marama Lloydd, Suzanne Smith, Geordan Wilcox, Kerryn McMurdo, Dr Rose Campbell and Elizabeth Ross. ¹

The goal is 'to bring dance in all its forms to Auckland and promote the talents of up and coming artists'. Regular programmes include Secondary Colours for high schools, Tertiary Improvisation Showcase for tertiary level dance and Bloom (previously Fresh), for emerging choreographers or for a change of artistic direction. It has been held every year in Auckland on the land of Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrākei until 2020 when the COVID 19 pandemic made the organisers move it fully online. ¹

For the first time Tuakana: Maori Contemporary Showcase was programmed. ¹

Featured was Okareka Dance Company’s Nga Hau E Wha, Daniel Belton’s Time Dance & Soma Songs, Sesilia Pusiaki’s Pukepuke ‘o Tonga, and Colours of India. The programme included Dunedin based Indian Classical Dance teacher and performer Swaroopa Unni with Sringaram (Romantic Love) at Q Theatre. Programme again in 2012 was Tuakana: Maori Contemporary Showcase featuring work by Tia Reihana, Cat Ruka, Merenia Gray, Kura Te Ua, artists from Hawaiki Tu Productions and Nga Mana Whakairo a Toi (Q Theatre). ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Tempo Dance Festival”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Tempo Dance Festival is annual dance festival in New Zealand, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²