Mangapapa dances into first place

MAKING MOVES: Mangapapa School won the NZ Dance Challenge for their school routine to Six60's song Sundown. Picture by Haimona Ngata

Mangapapa School bowled over the judges in a national dance competition to take home the NZ Dance Challenge Trophy.

The national dance challenge is an opportunity for students to learn, perform and share a dance routine along with other schools.

Schools around the country were given a dance routine for the song Sundown by Six60.

“We chose Mangapapa School as our winner because you could feel the energy and enthusiasm in their video,” said Marcela Breckon and Claire Sparks, the dance challenge creators.

“The fact that they had the whole school out there dancing together was just amazing. We had a vision of how this would roll out, but seeing Mangapapa filmed from the air with the whole school dancing together gave us a bigger sense of joy than we could have imagined.”

Over 30 schools registered to complete the challenge which ran for the first time this year.

Mangapapa School principal Paul Sadler said the competition complemented their curriculum because they were already teaching dance before teacher Toni Griffin saw the advert for the challenge.

“It also fitted perfectly with our MKids who love to be creative, dance, and perform,” said Mr Sadler.

Dance teacher Kirsten Barrett, along with the rest of the staff took on the mammoth task of teaching 500 students the dance moves.

The school got help to turn the dance into a movie, enlisting filmmaker and producer Haimona Ngata, whose child attends the school.Now the school has bigger plans.

“We have embarked on the journey of creating a movie that highlights and celebrates the place of dance and the history of dance at Mangapapa School across the ages,” said Mr Sadler.

The school ran a red carpet movie premiere, complete with popcorn, in the school hall to celebrate the win.

“At the end of the movie trailer, the message came up on the big screen that Mangapapa School had won the NZ Dance Challenge. Initially, there was shock but then they erupted into applause and excitement,” said Mr Sadler.

The next Dance Challenge is in the making for Term 2 next year.

“Our aim is to see as many New Zealand students coming together, to dance together and to have fun as possible. We want them all to feel a sense of unity and jointly share the success of achieving a common goal,” said the dance challenge organisers.