October 27, 2006

22 AWARDS FAREWELL A SPECTACULAR SEASON OF DANCE

17 incredible days of dance drew to a close on the 15th of October as tempo° 06 – The NZ Festival of Dance, celebrated its highly successful festival season by throwing a wrap party announcing the 2006 tempo awards for excellence in dance across 22 categories.

The outrageous and highly entertaining duo – Buffy and Bimbo fired up the crowd with their highly spirited drag routine before welcoming Festival director Mary-Jane O’Reilly and Festival Patron The Hon. Judith Tizard MP to the stage to present the 2006 awards.

A panel of five selected the winners of twenty tempo dance awards with The TEMPO SUPREME AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE In Choreography, Performance & Production going to Kilda Northcott & Lyne Pringle for Fishnet. The NZ Dancer Magazine Award for best overall group choreography, performance, design and production was presented by Editor of NZ Dancer – Katie Hayward; to Soul Speed for Awe Wai Wai to Soul Speed for Awe Wai Wai.

The two Peoples Choice awards voted for by tempo audiences again selected Kilda Northcott as BEST FEMALE DANCER with newcomer Benny Ord taking the award for BEST MALE DANCER for his work with Company Z.

Acknowledging excellence in performance, production and choreography tempo dance awards were also presented to many outstanding festival participants including Adrian Smith, Felicity Molloy, Yu Fen Wang, Emilia Rubio, Backlit Productions, Jacqui Cesan, Karen Ng, Charlotte Rose, Brad Gledhill, Ardre Foot, Sean Curham, Kelly Nash, Rosey Feltham, Rachel Atkinson, Jimmy Ngapera and Rena Te Hai.

The tempo awards party farewelled a great festival season which drew over 10,000 people to a wide range of dance performances from over 40 different local and international group’s all over Auckland city. Hot on the heels of this outstanding success Festival director Mary Jane O’Reilly is already developing next year’s tempo programme, with festival dates to be announced in December.