Iconic Contemporary Dance Work Gloria Announced For 2026 Aotearoa New Zealand Festival Of The Arts

The Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts is proud to announce Gloria as a signature event for the 2026 programme — a landmark trans-Tasman collaboration honouring one of New Zealand’s most revered choreographers, the late Douglas Wright.

Presented by The New Zealand Dance Company (NZDC) and Co3 Contemporary Dance Australia, Gloria restages Wright’s iconic masterpiece, first seen at the Festival in 1992, alongside two bold new works. Returning as part of the Festival’s 40th anniversary celebrations in 2026, this event pays tribute to one of Wright’s seminal works, while embracing the future of contemporary dance.

Festival Co-Director Dolina Wehipeihana says, “Douglas Wright’s impact on the contemporary dance scene in New Zealand is immeasurable. The Festival has previously presented many of Wright’s works including a double bill of A Far Cry and GLORIA, Inland and The Kiss Inside. We are so excited to work with Co3 and NZDC to honour his legacy by offering audiences a chance to experience this signature work.”

Set to Vivaldi’s most famous sacred score, performed live by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Voices New Zealand conducted by Dr Joseph Nolan, Gloria is a breathtaking celebration of life. Dancers soar, twist, and turn in a powerful, joyous affirmation of the human spirit.

This triple-bill programme also features A Moving Portrait, a meditative new work by Co3’s Founding Artistic Director Raewyn Hill, and Lament, a moving reflection on resilience and memory from New Zealand Dance Company’s Artistic Director, Moss Patterson. Together, these works honour the whakapapa of contemporary dance in Aotearoa while forging fresh creative pathways across the Tasman. Festival Co-Director Tama Waipara says, “to bring together a new generation of dancers from these two companies to embody Douglas’s magical choreography, means the power of Douglas Wright's work lives on. To see Gloria reimagined alongside brand-new works by Moss Patterson and Raewyn Hill is to experience both the legacy and future of contemporary dance in Aotearoa.”

Raewyn Hill, Founding Artistic Director of Co3 Contemporary Dance Australia, first saw the original performance of Gloria at the St James Theatre during her first year at the New Zealand School of Dance. She later performed in a retrospective season of the work. Now, bringing Gloria back to the Festival and the St James Theatre after 34 years carries special significance.

Megan Adams from The Estate of Douglas Wright reflects “many young people were inspired to pursue a career in dance after seeing a performance of Gloria, and it remains one of the most memorable works Wright created. I hope this new season will likewise inspire a new generation and uplift the spirits of all who are fortunate enough to witness it.”

Hill says that presenting her own work alongside Douglas Wright’s iconic masterpiece and Moss Te Ururangi Patterson’s new creation “feels like a conversation across generations and borders. It is an honour to stand in that lineage, to celebrate our shared cultural heritage, and to offer audiences a programme that is at once deeply embedded in Aotearoa and reaching outward to the world.”

Talking to the significance and power of the work, Patterson states “With Douglas Wright’s Gloria alongside Co3 and NZDC, we carry Aotearoa’s mana onto the stage. Dance holds memory, resilience, and hope, and I feel that thread running through me. My wish is that audiences leave not only inspired, but with a deeper connection to this whenua and its stories."

Exclusive to Wellington, this exhilarating performance will premiere as part of the 2026 Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts at Wellington’s St James Theatre from Thursday 12 – Saturday 14 March. The Festival’s full programme will be announced in November.

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