Illuminating journey in dance
Shropshire says reflecting on those ideas, as well as spending a month here working with the NZDC, meant The Geography of an Archipelago became about how we deal with our current concerns and reconcile these with memories and histories.
“Do we cut through or go around? There are different ways of doing things, of navigating a way to new places in our lives. It was about the transition of change, taking a journey into unfamiliar places . . . The experience of not knowing what was next [in my life] played a role in that part of its creation,” he says. “At the same time, I was dealing with a sense of loss and disappointment and searching to find answers about what was next.”
Three years on, Shropshire is now a freelance choreographer based in Holland. He is kept busy collaborating with dance companies, mainly in Europe and the United States, and is most interested in narrative-driven work. He most recently worked with Danish Dance Theatre on a piece inspired by Swedish writer August Strindberg’s 1888 play, Miss Julie.
While it has been three years since Lumina’s debut, it continues to set new milestones for NZDC. It arrives home direct from Theatre National de Chaillot in Paris, where it was the first New Zealand work performed there, as well as dates in Britain.
The programme also features the loud, high-energy Brouhaha from local choreographer Malia Johnston and her creative partners, composer Eden Mulholland and AV designer Rowan Pierce. It’s completed with In Transit, a work by choreographer Louise Potiki Bryant and composer/ AV designer Paddy Free that reflects on the traces left behind in the Maori ritual of encounter.