| Tempo Dance Festival have always pushed boundaries as Aotearoa’s only professional dance festival, but 2020 has seen them become world leaders as the global pandemic took hold. Creating #GoingDigital to support artists and provide audiences with the same outstanding calibre of dance works from their homes, Tempo are proud to announce their third and final season – Putiputi, runs free and online from Monday 9 November – Saturday 5 December. Tempo became the first arts festival in the world to offer a year-round programme entirely free of charge, as well as being an early adopter of the shift online as New Zealand’s first arts festival to go fully digital in response to COVID-19 on 4 May. Regardless of the immense challenges faced by the performing arts sector throughout 2020, Tempo has produced a world-class programme of digital dance works encompassing film, live-streamed performance, dance classes and workshops, archival screenings, book readings, online dance photography and painting exhibitions, artist interviews and dance documentary. Artistic Director Cat Ruka says, “The kaupapa of putting on the digital festival this year and having it continue all year round was about keeping the home fires burning for dance communities at a particularly precarious time. We wanted to make sure that there was always a home base for artists to turn to and see themselves reflected in whilst in isolation, and we wanted to be reflective of the resilience and determination of our sector. What has come from this very simple intention of wanting to nurture community is a one-of-a-kind festival that will have platformed the digital works of 80 local and international dance artists.” Since putting the call out to artists during the first lockdown, Ruka received 180 submissions from artists all over the world. Throughout the year, the festival programme has included the work of both local and international artists, ranging from recent graduate work through to work by artists who are well established. Featured artists range from ballet superstars Fredrick Davis (NY) and Loughlan Prior (NZ), to Limbs Dance Company national treasures Marianne Schultz (NY) and Douglas Wright (NZ), to disability dance pioneers Suzanne Cowan (NZ) and Sarah Houbolt (AUS). The third and final season, Putiputi, includes the work of Head of Victorian College of the Arts Carol Brown (AUS), Artistic Director of Performance Art Week Aotearoa Sara Cowdell (NZ), Queensland artists Courtney Scheu and Itamar Freed (AUS), and Melbourne-based Māori artists Irihipeti Waretini and Bella Waru (AUS). The entire festival has been hosted across Tempo’s website and social media platforms, accessible entirely for free via devices. In addition to ensuring that all artists are paid, the Tempo team have enabled an ‘artist donation’ function on their website, so audiences can also make financial contributions of any size directly to the artist whilst their work is screening. NOTE – Copy for this article supplied by Elephant Publicity |
| PUTIPUTI As part of Tempo #GoingDigital 2020 9 November – 5 December The programme will be hosted on the Tempo website https://www.tempo.co.nz/ and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TempoDanceFestivalNZ |