In 2015 Carrie Rae Cunningham became the fourth Artistic Director of Tempo Dance Festival /Auckland Dance Festival. Brendan Meek joined the administration team as General Manager and Jessie McCall became the Producer. With an office at the central city Wellesley Studios, home to the New Zealand Dance Company as well as studio space for freelance artists and public dance classes, Tempo was strategically located within the Auckland dance community.

The festival, again based at Q Theatre and running from 30 September to 18 October, kept to its tried and true programming with the return of showcase programmes Fresh, Prime, Y Chromozone, Out of the Box, The Kids Show, and Honouring a Dancer, this year’s recipient being Katie Haines, the founder of the Alana Haines Australasian Ballet Awards. A new addition to the showcase format was All That... featuring short Jazz-influenced works. Choreography in that programme included works from Kayla Paige and Andrew Cesan. Alchemy presented an assortment of styles and works from various young dancers, including students from MIT, the University of Auckland, Unitec and Auckland Youth Dance Company, who performed an excerpt from Mary Jane O’Reilly’s interpretation of Giselle.

Atamira Dance Collective opened the festival with Mitimiti. Described in review as‘ritual, performance, happening’ this multi-layred, full-length work of dance, haka, music, design and spoken word, energised the spaces in and around Q Theatre, setting the tone for this dynamic incarnation of the festival. Māori choreographers long associated with Atamira, Nancy Wijohn and Kelly Nash, presented their duet Ahua in the Loft space. Ross McCormack’s company, Muscle Mouth, premiered Triumphs and Other Alternatives, with dancers Emily Adams, James Vu Ahn Pham joining McCormack. Transfoming the Rangatira stage into a mass of plastic sheeting, plaster dust, tables, and chairs, the three performers conjured an exhilarting insight into the world of creator and creations. A shared programme by two Pasifika choreograpers delved into history, both religious and secular. Eve by Vivian Hosking-Aue saw the perimeter of the Loft space lined by rows of apples, eaten at random by the three dancers as they gave a new interpretation of the Garden of Eden. Malaga, by Thomas Fonua, explored the history of Samoans taken to Germany to be put on display in the 19th century.

Inspired by black and white Film Noir of the 1940s and 1950s, Zahra Killen- Chance’s The Fallen Mystery was an investigation of ‘the illusion of apperances’, featuring performers Georgie Goater, Lisa Greenfield and Paul Young. Yatra Dance Company made a return appearance to Tempo with the work The Artist, based on the works of reknowned 19th century Indian painter, Raja Ravi Varma. The festival also celebrated the art of Tango by offering a Tango Workshop to the public and performances by Dance Passion with their Tango Fling with Swing.

Katie Haines was the focus of Honouring a Dancer in 2015, celebrating her work in establising and maintaining the Alana Haines Australasian ballet awards in memory of her late daughter.