The Auckland Arts Festival Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki 2025 closes tonight, Sunday 23 March. Using any metric I can imagine, it’s been an outstanding success. Full houses, excellent productions both international and domestic, classy venues, and manaakitanga throughout.

It was an inspired decision to wind it all up with Aotearoa New Zealand’s foremost contemporary dance company Black Grace. It’s 30 years since this excitement machine first hit the boards at Auckland’s much lamented Maidment Theatre, and now, three decades on, they take over the Auckland Town Hall to celebrate this notable milestone.

It’s a celebration, and Artistic Director Neil Ieremia is at pains to tell is that this is not a retrospective. It’s so important to him that everyone understands this factoid that he names the show Black Grace – This is Not a Retrospective. He’s right, most of the evening features exciting new work but there are delicious references to the past and I’m personally pleased about that. It’s far too good a body of work not to allow us to remember a few of those special moments. So, just a wee bit of retrospective for us oldies, more like a sweet memory nudge perhaps.  

Ieremia formed Black Grace Dance Company in 1995 when the company consisted of ten male dancers of Pacific, Māori, and New Zealand heritage, many of whom had been friends since childhood, and it remained an all-male company until 2001 when women were finally included.

An important reminder in case I forget, Ieremia always draws on his Samoan roots in the creation of his ‘innovative dance works’, works that reach across social, cultural and generational barriers. His work is always expressed with raw finesse, a unique beauty, and real power, so it made perfect sense, at that moment, to add a female dimension.

‘Having some very good young women in the company changed the possibilities and creativity, they offered so much more. Men come to training late and the women often had early ballet training and having that to work with as a choreographer really opened things up.’ (Ieremia, 2015).

For Black Grace – This Is Not A Retrospective, Ieremia also brings together raft of the country’s most notable non-dancing artists – the iconic Che Fu, hip hop artist Tha Feelstyle, drag legend Buckwheat, and the New Zealand Trio (Somi Kim, Ashley Brown, and Amalia Hall), along with Auckland’s ‘Godfather of soul and hip hop’, DJ Manuel Bundy.

And, of course, his magnificent dancers.

From the box office to the bar, the entire evening was beautifully curated.

The VIP area was especially good fun. I had the absolute pleasure of talking ballet with Creative NZ Lead Practice Adviser, the delightful and talented Cassandra Wilson. Then it was on to talking film with documentary film maker Toby Mills (Raukawa/Ngaiterangi), about going to school with Neil in Cannons Creek and making a documentary about him (‘From Cannon’s Creek to Jacob’s Pillow’, 2005) to discussing Moana Maniapoto’s great interview with the impresario Ieremia – he’s more than just a dance man – shown this week on Te Ao with Moana.

Such a joy.

Our seats are the very best the Auckland Town Hall’s Great Hall has to offer, so seriously, lucky us. We are able to look down on an impressive catwalk that brings the action close, giant screens frame the stage, and an immersive surround sound design by music maestro Anonymouz pulls everything together.

While we are beautifully positioned on the balcony, most of the crowd is at floor level, and the dancing public are already in top form when we enter the hall. This carries on throughout the performance and probably beyond. The public dancing adds to the excitement that seems to simply never end.

The show begins but, in fact, the actual performance melds with everything else that happens, from arrival to departure, presenting a delicious, seemingly continual, production unity. Nobody does infrastructure like Ieremia, every facet is immaculate, from the choreography to the music, to the visuals, the sequential programming, and the sound.

 Add the costumes which are simply outstanding, with one black dress absolutely taking my breath away.

I’m trying not to say, ‘I want’.

There are videos played on the screens. Memory after memory. The dancers appear. The symmetry Black Grace is known for is immediately evident. It’s flawless.

There’s no programme – well, I couldn’t find one either at the venue or online – so acknowledging individuals is difficult. Such a shame, but Black Grace has always been Neil’s company and that’s all that matters: his vision, and who can complain.

Not me.

Marrying form and style isn’t easy but Che Fu works with the dancers with consummate ease. Ever the professional, the Niuean star works the crowd, and his performance is as faultless as it has always been, ever since his days driving Supergroove. His warmth towards his fellow performers and his audience is adorable and his fans share the love in return.

What follows is an eclectic dance programme that’s never less than extremely good. Some sets are breathtaking, others almost beyond words and, while there is a definite structure – including some tart sociopolitical comment – the sections meld into one delicious whole leaving little space for overthinking, little time to be bored (you’d have to be dead to be bored), and, because notetaking is out the window I am reduced to videoing long sections for future reference – just like everyone else.

Approaching the evening as a whole I find myself massively impressed by the principals, as company groupings devolve into the most magical pas de deux, pas de trois, and pas de quatre, and then back to the main crew – the same but different – who reset the mood, and the nuance of the narrative. It feels weird using French terms for dance that barely pays lip-service to the classical, but it is there. These dancers do not deny their training, but nor do they live in it. They are Black Grace, and that’s new, enough, and different.

The singular groups clearly build connection and camaraderie with each other, with the principals, the guests, and with their audience, and always through outstanding ensemble work. There’s a profound commitment to the choreography, which varies from steps that a five-year-old could manage, to movement that’s not only complex to perform but moves so fast that heads spin in the audience, and we are reduced to cheering and drooling in admiration.

The gauge measuring the level of entertainment Black Grace is generating has clearly blown a gasket – I’m boogeying in my seat in ways unbefitting of an elderly pakeha with a job to do, until I finally give in and shout to my spouse (who is stoutly ignoring me)  ‘bugger it, let’s dance’, and I leap to my feet like everyone else, and dance.

It’s momentary, but I certainly sit down with a feeling of immense satisfaction, relieved that all this happened in the darkened theatre and not downstairs in the bright light with the masses where someone might see, the masses who really are the happy hoi polloi.

The welcome for hip hop artist Tha Feelstyle would suggest he has his own audience, and they’ve all turned up. Born in Samoa Tha Feelstyle moved to New Zealand in the 1980s. He raps in both Samoan and English and he’s incredibly popular with this crowd who are already well warmed up and lubricated before he appears. He was part of the Wellington hip hop duo Rough Opinion and, in the 1990s, was a member of The Overstayers along with superstar King Kapisi and DJ Raw. Tha Freestyle is slick and impressive and, like all the other guest artists, connects really well with his fellow performers all of whom seem to beam a lot when he’s on stage.

An unexpected surprise, and a pleasant one, was the performance of Somi Kim, Ashley Brown, and Amalia Hall, better known as the NZTrio. NZTrio is known for its eclectic repertoire and any preconceptions of their form of classical music being stuffy or intimidating are completely smashed by their edgy selection, musical ambiance, and concert manaakitanga, all of which are on display during their spot. They fit seamlessly into the whole but still manage to be a standout.

‘Purple Haze’ will do that for you.

Drag legend Buckwheat performs two spots and, as always, she proves to be hugely popular. Her style is timeless and quality drag – and trans people – have always been a part of the Black Grace family. I can imagine her applause still echoing around the venue today.

Auckland’s ‘Godfather of soul and hip hop’, DJ Manuel Bundy, provides fabulous sounds, confident, creative, and integrated perfectly into the whole.

As anticipated, it’s an exceptional night. I doubt anyone under the Town Hall roof last night expected anything less. The curtain call is especially interesting in that it gives us the opportunity to thank everyone who has contributed to an exceptional night’s entertainment but, likewise, to acknowledge the thirty years of exemplary work completed by the hundreds of people who have contributed to the Black Grace legacy during the past three decades, decades that have seen extraordinary change in our world.

For most of us, though, we’re there to say, ‘top work, champ’ to ‘the man in white’, visionary director Neil Ieremia, without whose genius none of this would ever have happened.

Brilliant work, Sir. Simply outstanding.

So, the question hangs, what’s next for Black Grace, and what happens to all this new work? Seems a shame if the rest of the world doesn’t get to experience it like we did?

The silence is profound.

I guess that means ‘watch this space’.

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