Black Grace dancers performing in Esplanade by Paul Taylor Dance Company. Photo: Toaki Okano
The dance troupe Black Grace has to employ the Robin Hood method of creative survival in tough times - but it's dancing on after 30 years, and its leader has stopped compromising his art for ticket sales
"We employ the Robin Hood model. We go and take money from the rich people over there and we come here and we burn it all here."
That's Neil Ieremia, founder, chief executive and chief choreographer of the Black Grace Dance Company, talking about the fundraising formula that's helping to keep his 30-year-old company alive, alongside money from Creative New Zealand.
The rich people they're taking money from are wealthy American patrons. It is also propped up by international performing fees.
"Our biggest market is the US," says Ieremia.
"We're an organisation that can perform at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC and perform in the foyer of the Auckland Art Gallery. We'll go all the way from Invercargill to the Joyce Theatre in Manhattan."
The company has to be agile, he says, but standards have to remain high if it expects to be paid a fee in the tens of thousands per show internationally.
Black Grace dancers performing in If Ever There Was A Time. Photo: Toaki Okano
The Detail talked to Ieremia, considered a ground breaker in New Zealand modern dance, about the radical change to his creative process after three decades and why he hasn't been happy with his recent shows.
"I haven't been satisfied for quite some time with what's been coming out of my studio."
Standards of dance training have slipped due to changes to the tertiary education system and pressure to raise money, he says, prompting him to return to his old, hands-on style of directing in an effort to lift the quality of his own shows.
"I used to be a very, very clear and demonstrative choreographer. It goes like this, your little pinkie on your right hand bends to this degree. And it would frustrate me if people didn't do that."
He's reverting to it, after 20 years.
"I'm just going to go back to, 'it goes like this, do it like this, follow exactly how I do this, there is no room for your interpretation of this at this moment. This is not a democracy in terms of you decide how this goes, it goes the way I make it'."
Neil Ieremia, founder, chief executive and chief choreographer of Black Grace Dance Company. Photo: Jinki Cambronero
Recently returned from Japan, Black Grace is now counting down to one of its most ambitious tours, a double bill with performances in Auckland and Christchurch later this month (Auckland 21 November, Christchurch 25 and 26 November).
It features Esplanade, the work of the legendary American choreographer Paul Taylor and it is the first time a professional New Zealand company has been licensed to perform it.
This week, Richard Chen See, the head of licensing for Paul Taylor Dance Foundation arrived in Aotearoa to oversee rehearsals for the show.
The connection goes back to 1999 when the New York-based company performed Esplanade at a dance festival in Auckland. Black Grace was doing its own shows in the Spiegeltent in Aotea Square and the American troupe would pop in and watch and share beer and pizzas.
"They'd come over every night and just hang out."
The new show has got "real punch".
"I'm not sure people have seen this particular side of me for a while because I've just grabbed the bull by the horns and taken over again. I quite like it.
"Certainly a lot of the dancers who've been with me for a while are like, wow, what's going on."
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