‘The Rite of Spring in New Zealand

The choreographers and dancers João dos Santos Martins (Portugal) and Min Kyoung Lee (South Korea) will present in May the performance ‘The Rite of Spring (2013)’ in New Zealand.

The performance will have multiple presentations between May 1 and 23 in different cities across New Zealand: Unitec Dance Studios, Auckland (May 1 and 2, 2015 at 7pm); Allen Hall Theatre, Dunedin (May 6 and 7, 2015 at 7:30pm) and BATS Theatre, Wellington (May 21, 22 and 23, 2015 at 7pm). The touring in NZ will include the special appearance of local dance specialists Carol Brown and Kristian Larsen (in Auckland and Dunedin) and Melanie Hamilton and Chris Jannides (in Wellington) who will live comment the shows.

‘The Rite of Spring (2013)’ was premiered in 2013 at Circular – Performing Arts Festival and was also presented at Culturgest, in Lisbon, Sá da Bandeira Theatre, in Santarém (Portugal) and at the Korean National Company of Contemporary Dance, in Seoul (Korea). The performance is a dance that battles, marathons and dialogues with The Rite of Spring (1913) of Vaslav Nijinsky, the mythical absent choreography, and its subsequent numerous versions of the last 100 years, to test the role of dance, sacrifice, pleasure, and death in the community of theatre.

For “reclaiming the place and reponsability of art as a space for contesting the norm and of civic action”, the performance was considered one of the 10 best performances presented in Portugal by the weekly newspaper Expresso.

The touring of The Rite of Spring (2013) in New Zealand is made possible with the support and collaboration of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Consulate General of Portugal in Sydney, Camões I.P., Unitec Department of Performing and Screen Arts in Auckland, Allen Hall/Theatre Studies of the University of Otago, BATS Theatre in Wellington.

João dos Santos Martins works as a performer and choreographer since 2008. He created ‘Le Sacre du Printemps (2013) ‘with Min Kyoung Lee and ‘Masterpiece’ (2014). He collaborated in ‘Tropa Fandanga’ (2014) by Teatro Praga and in ‘Retrospective’ by Xavier Le Roy. He is currently performing in Eszter Salamon’s ‘Monument 0 (Hunted by wars 1913-2013)’ and has created ‘Continued Project’ (2015), which premiered in Portugal last February.

Min Kyoung Lee has been working as a dance/performance maker and performer since 2004 and performed and presented her own and collaborative works in various venues and festivals in New Zealand, Europe and Korea. She studied Chinese Philosophy, Contemporary dance (Unitec Institute of Technolog) and Choreography (MA) at Centre Chorégraphique Nationale Montpellier / Montpellier 3 University (France). Min is a recipient of scholarship/fund from danceWEB Europe, Creative New Zealand Professional Development, Todd Foundation, Asia New Zealand Foundation, Akademie Schloss Solitude Fellowship among others, and is a co-founder of Sweet and Tender Collaborations, a network of international artist.

Tickets selling @ https://www.iticket.co.nz and http://www.eventfinder.co.nz.

More info www.circularfestival.com.

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