The Questionnaire

Michael Parmenter

Michael Parmenter is one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed dancers and choreographers. He returns to the Auckland Arts Festival and New Zealand Festival with the world premiere season of OrphEus – a dance opera, a bold new work with The New Zealand Dance Company. Interview by

Mike Alexander. What are you plugging right now?

I’m currently choreographing OrphEus – a dance opera with nine magnificent dancers, seven inspiring musicians and four extraordinary singers. We are playing in the Auckland Arts Festival and the New Zealand Festival in Wellington early March.

What’s your idea of perfect happiness?

Propped up in bed with a pile of books that I have just rescued from the second-hand bookstore.

Which living person do you most admire?

Helen Clark: her decision on the Tampa boys was one of my proudest moments as a New Zealander. She just keeps fighting the good fight. Her recent call for subsidised dental care is way overdue.

What’s your most embarrassing moment?

In the middle of a performance of my solo show Nightingale Fever, predominantly a text-based work, I completely blanked. I couldn’t remember where to go with my lines. I had to ask the lighting operator what came next. He was awesome and just threw some lines down to me without dropping a beat. But I was devastated; I mean, I wrote the damn thing so I had no excuse.

What is your most prized material possession?

My bike but it’s not even mine. I’m riding a wonderfully light pair of wheels borrowed from a friend. I’d be lost without them.

What is the most adventurous thing you have done that has taken you out of your comfort zone at the time?

My very first dance class.

What gets your back up?

The cat stretch.

If you could time travel, where would you go and why?

Paris during the revolution. It must have been such an exciting time full of protest and promise. Pity it all went to custard. Choose your parents well.

What job would you do other than your own and why?

Ethologist. I imagine it’s a bit like trying to comprehend the choreography of the animal world, full of beauty and drama.

If you were given three wishes that you could fulfil by a magic genie, what would they be?

At the risk of sounding like a Miss World contestant, I’ll go for the personal rather than the universal: a regular income, space to get all my books onto shelves, a dog.