2023

Tempo Dance Festival - 2023

In 2023, the overall aim of Tempo: Te Rerenga o Tere was to offer a suite of projects in community and public spaces to celebrate the innovation of dance creatives, promote their mahi, especially in digital and community spaces and encourage more of the public to become lovers of dance. We also focused on creating new partnerships with cultural and arts organisations to increase resources and opportunities for dance creatives working within Auckland’s dance ecosystem.

Fuel the Fire was an intimate gathering of dance creatives that ignited korerorero and presented industry insights from the Tāmaki Makaurau Dance Enquiry. A collaboration between NZDFT/Tempo and Northern Dance Network, this extensive research project illuminated current gaps and needs identified by dance creatives as factors holding back their creative and career development. The Enquiry report also laid out the case for the establishment of a ‘dance house’ to undertake strategic projects to support dance creatives to have sustainable careers.

Capture: A Digital Dance Showcase was delivered in partnership with Auckland Live in October in Aotea Square. The showcase was a spectacular display of dance films, fan-directed hip-hop battles, and a celebration of dance, our oldest art form, on the Square’s large digital screen. Sixty-one dance films were shown on rotation over six days celebrating the work of 43 digital dance creatives. Capture included dance works from early career, established and seasoned artists, films made during COVID-19 lockdowns, digital dance premieres, and a programme from the archives of iconic dance films that have shaped Aotearoa’s dance film history.

As well, two live digital activations were presented. Projekt Team and Blob Collective hosted a live freestyle battle. The audience interacted with the live event through an online link to become battle judges voting in real-time. They were also able to decide on different themes and props the dancers had to incorporate and to choose the winner of the battle from some of the best freestyle dance talent in Aotearoa. 

The New Zealand Company presented a new interactive digital performance, which included their dancers performing live while being live projected on the screen through the intimate gaze of a camera lens as video artist Caroline Bindon moved within and around the dancers on the dance mat. 

Our Living Archive | Taonga Tuku Iho was a partnership with Auckland Central Library to share, over three weeks, the rich history of the Tempo Dance Festival. Display boards documenting twenty years of Tempo Dance Festival were complemented by a programme of video programme on a large digital screen that highlighted dance performances and moments from the Festival over its many years.

Melting Pot, a dynamic partnership with Freshmans Crew closed the year. Our collaboration delivered community-driven initiatives in West and East Auckland including workshops in schools and public spaces, and free performances, all to activate and encourage tamariki and rangatahi to dance.