KEY POINTS:
Even the dynamic Deirdre Tarrant, artistic director of Footnote Dance, is flabbergasted at the momentum her company's latest season Made in New Zealand gathered as it went along.
It has been Tarrant's long-standing preference for choreographers involved in her shows to use New Zealand music, an issue that some have and some have not been able to take to heart.
But five of the six works newly minted for the Made in New Zealand programme have original scores by some of the country's best movers and shakers in contemporary music.
The sixth work is Michael Parmenter's Bhakti, first performed by Footnote in 1991, with music by David Parsons.
The atmosphere in Footnote's Wellington studio has been highly charged over the past few weeks, Tarrant says, as choreographers and musicians co-created.
In another synergetic coincidence, Made in New Zealand opens in New Zealand Music Month.
"The music is amazing," says Tarrant, who also admits that her policy of giving choreographers - and musicians - total artistic freedom, sometimes requires a "scary leap" of faith.
"I don't necessarily always like everything ... last year one choreographer stapled a dancer to a board so she was totally immobile. None of that whole workshop made it into the show.
"But what I like or dislike is not the issue," she says. "The important thing is to give choreographers the opportunity to present their work, to hone their skills, and to see their work develop over a longer period of time."
Many of New Zealand's leading contemporary dance talents have been nurtured by Tarrant and the opportunities she provides.
Michael Parmenter has an 11-year association with Footnote and a new work, with an original sound score by Eden Mulholland, will feature in a second tour later this year.
"The country has grown up," says Tarrant. "We need to nurture new talent but we also need to honour those, like Michael, with an outstanding body of work."
So last year Tarrant initiated the second annual programme, featuring Raewyn Hill, who had worked with the company over a seven-year period.
Moss Patterson and Malia Johnstone are in their fourth and second years with Footnote and contribute works to Made in New Zealand.
Patterson's work is Kokowai, with music by Pitch Black's Paddy Free and Richard Nunns.
Johnstone explores broad concepts like destruction and freedom in Broken by Design with a sound score by Mulholland. Christchurch-based freelancer Julia Sadler contributes Match, a piece about sporting life and one-up-manship with "sound creation" by Christchurch musician Ben Brady.
Tim Fletcher, who lives in Europe but returns home regularly to work, looks at the ways people deal with long-haul flights in The Chicken or the Lamb? with music by Sam Flynn Scott, principal songwriter for Wellington band the Phoenix Foundation.
Tarrant's own work, Around the World in Wellington, reflects and treasures the cultural mix of the new New Zealand, with music by composer, sound designer and musician Stephen Gallagher, inspired by the richness and diversity of children's stories which she encounters in her dance education in the country's schools.
On stage
What: Made in New Zealand, by Footnote Dance
Where and when: Herald Theatre May 3-4; Opera House, Hastings, May 19
