SUBTLE DANCES

Regent Theatre Dunedin, Dunedin, New Zealand

Friday 16 April 2021

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Important Info

Type: Dance

City: Dunedin, New Zealand

Starts at: 00:00

Overview

The Ballet Collective Aotearoa works to bring new contemporary ballet to a diverse audience, sharing works created and unique to Aotearoa, NZ. Subtle Dances is a season of new choreographic work created by some of New Zealand’s most exciting ballet choreographers. London based Cameron McMillan, Wellington resident Loughlan Prior and Sarah Knox who works out of Auckland. Subtle Dances will express the unique voice of those that call New Zealand home. There is an energy and magnetism that New Zealand trained dancers expel, that places us here in this young, rugged, diverse landscape and intrinsically relates to those who live here.

The company has collaborated with the prodigious NZTrio who will play live, John Psathas’s work Helix, Claire Cowan’s Subtle Dances (commissioned by the NZTrio) and music by Rhian Sheehan rearranged for the Trio.

This season of new choreography explores the energy and vivacity of ballet dancers trained here in Aotearoa. It shows Aotearoa’s unique creativity shaped by our curiosity and isolation – shaped by our rugged landscape and our openness to new and immersive ideas through our many cultural and environmental influences.

Venue Info

Regent Theatre Dunedin - Dunedin
Dunedin Central

The Regent Theatre is a theatre in Dunedin, New Zealand with a seating capacity of about 1,650. It is in The Octagon, the city's central plaza, directly opposite the Municipal Chambers (Dunedin Town Hall) and close to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

Originally a 2,000 seat cinema the Regent opened on 1 June 1928, and the interior is elaborately decorated in a revived baroque style, characteristic of the super cinemas of the time. The design is a variation of Robert Atkinson's for the 1921 Regent cinema in Brighton, England, which was demolished in 1974. There were comparable picture palaces in other cities in Britain and Australia, few of which now survive and, apart from the Dunedin building, none in their original form. (There was one in Brisbane which survived until recently, Regent Theatre (Brisbane), another in Sydney, Regent Theatre (Sydney) demolished in 1988, and a still existing but re-modelled structure in Melbourne, Regent Melbourne.) All these designs are descended from Charles Garnier's for the Paris Opera, (palais Garnier) completed in 1875. The Regent's auditorium succeeds in replaying the exuberance of the original in a very different time and space.

The Dunedin building's supervising architect was James Hodge White (1896–1970), one of the founders of the Dunedin architectural firm Miller White & Dunn. It was sited behind a building on the Octagon designed by David Ross (1828–1908) which was first opened in 1876. The Octagon building was given an additional storey in 1880 and remodelled at the ground floor in 1928 to provide the present theatre entrance.

Purchased by the Otago Theatre Trust in 1973, the building has since been adapted to work as a live venue, although it still also functions as a cinema during film festivals every year. It is now owned by the Dunedin City Council.

At the end of 2010, the theatre began $7.5 million refurbishments including upgrading the flying system, replacing the chairs, carpet and other work. It was re-opened on 30 July 2011 with a 'thank you' concert for sponsors.