2019

Tempo Dance Festival - 2019

In early 2019, with the departure of Carrie Rae Cunningham, the Auckland Dance Festival Trust appointed Cat Ruka (Ngapūhi, Waitaha) as the new Artistic Director of Tempo. Ruka came to Tempo with a wealth of experience in dance, tertiary education and community engagement. For the 2019 festival Ruka committed to creating a festival programme that, while reflecting its ‘pan-genre’ history also emphasised diversity via a Māori model of Te Whare Tapa Whā- a four-pillared support system that recognises the connections between tinana (physicality), hinengaro (intellect), wairua (spirituality) and whanaungatanga (social connections). Within these guiding principles the 2019 festival showcased a wide range of performances and events. 

The most widely popular/populist show had to be Girl, choreographed by Parris Goebel, directed by Kendal Collins and performed by a group of high school-aged young women on the Q Rangatira stage. Another nod to popular culture- but at the opposite end of the aesthetic spectrum to Girl- was the double bill Dances with Aldous, with choreography by Zahra Killen-Chance and the duo of Kosta Bogoievski and Josie Archer. Using the music of the pop singer Aldous Harding as a jumping off point, the evening was as much an exploration of design and performance art as it was of dance. Choreographer Kit Reilly presented a vision of a technology-controlled future in his trio Utopia #9 and Sofia McIntyre’s solo Faceless HairCry presented the dancer as a not-quite human exploring the realm of a limited environment. The celebratory headline performance Fa’asinomaga/Identity by Siva Samoa saw over 50 performers fill the Rangatira stage with a joyful array of traditional and contemporay Pasific dance, music and song. 

Ruka retained some annual Tempo showcase programmes, such as Secondary and Tertiary Colours. The Fresh programme reemerged in 2019 as Bloom and featured work by Emma Cosgrave and Abi Jones, Hummingbird (s),Fibre Bodies by Kisha September, Catalyst by Matthew Moore and Pamela Sidhu, Limerence by Samara Reweti and Untitled# 1 by Paul Edward Wilson.