Looking back: Contemporary dance: A Māori perspective (part one and two)

Abstract

This article by Stephen Bradshaw begins with a reprint of his article originally commissioned by Creative New Zealand in July 2001 and subsequently published in Moving to the future. Ngā whakanekeneke atu ki te Ao o Apōpō, a strategy document for professional contemporary dance 2001-2003. In this article, Bradshaw investigated significant issues in the development of Māori contemporary dance over thirty years. Bradshaw offered a personal perspective as practitioner and narrated some of the meetings between Māori and contemporary dance, specific wānanga in which Māori artists investigated culturally appropriate ways of using theatre dance arts, and discussing examples of cultural exchange. Bradshaw engaged with key issues and definitions relating to inter-cultural and intra-cultural exchange and offered an understanding of continuum Māori dance that was timely and insightful. The second part of this article contains Bradshaw's response to this article (2002), with a focus on strategies in the support and establishment of Māori contemporary dance in recent years. Complimentary to Bradshaw's work is the subsequent article in this issue of Dance Research Aotearoa by Jack Gray in which he responds to Bradshaw's comments as a current contemporary dance practitioner.

https://doi.org/10.15663/dra.v3i1.40
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@ The University of Waikato