News of New Zealanders via Global Media

JLo Shares Moment She First Spotted Parris Goebel

JLo Shares Moment She First Spotted Parris Goebel

In anticipation of the release of her ninth studio album, Jennifer Lopez recently spoke to the NZ Herald’s Jenni Mortimer, with the singer sharing the moment she first spotted the New Zealand choreographer Parris…

Parris Goebel Knows Femininity Is Strength

Parris Goebel Knows Femininity Is Strength

This year, New Zealander Parris Goebel choreographed Rihanna’s Super Bowl halftime show – and she says she’s only getting started, Alison Cohn reports for Harper’s Bazaar. Goebel, 31, first got to have a hand in…

Atamira’s Te Wheke Debuts at NY’s Joyce Theater

Atamira’s Te Wheke Debuts at NY’s Joyce Theater

“Founded in 2000 in New Zealand, Atamira fuses Māori cultural expression with contemporary dance theatre. There’s an admirable integrity to how the group doesn’t explain much to the uninitiated,” New York Times…

Paris Opera Ballet’s Hannah O’Neill a Star

Paris Opera Ballet’s Hannah O’Neill a Star

The Paris Opera Ballet has named New Zealand’s Hannah O’Neill as a new star dancer, a rarity as a non-French dancer in the world’s oldest ballet company, France 24 reports. Tokyo-born O’Neill, 30, is one…

Dancer Lance Savali Never Misses a Beat

Dancer Lance Savali Never Misses a Beat

Lance Savali is a Wellington-born dancer, who shot to stardom after beginning his career with compatriot Parris Goebel’s dance crew, The Royal Family. Speaking to Complex AU, Savali chats about working with some of…

Crafting Savage x Fenty with Parris Goebel

Crafting Savage x Fenty with Parris Goebel

In-demand New Zealand choreographer Parris Goebel talks with Harper’s Bazaar about shaping the annual fashion spectacle Savage x Fenty and her longstanding creative friendship with Rihanna. While Rihanna is the mastermind behind the Savage x…

Anything’s Possible for Choreographer Parris Goebel

Anything’s Possible for Choreographer Parris Goebel

From Justin Bieber to Rihanna, the entertainment industry’s elite all want to work with Parris Goebel, Grace O’Neill writes for Harper’s Bazaar Australia. The New Zealand-born choreographer seems to be at the height of…

Choreographer Parris Goebel Honoured to Win Emmy

Choreographer Parris Goebel Honoured to Win Emmy

Auckland-born Parris Goebel, 30, has won big at the 2022 Emmy Awards, 1 News reports. She took out the award for Outstanding Choreography for Variety Or Reality Programming for her work on Savage X…

Perth’s Co3 to Perform Douglas Wright’s Gloria

Perth’s Co3 to Perform Douglas Wright’s Gloria

In September, Perth’s contemporary dance company Co3, will bring the late New Zealand choreographer Douglas Wright’s “much hallowed work” Gloria “back to life”, Dance Australia editor Karen van Ulzen writes. “Wright was a uniquely gifted…

Inspirational Dancer Rodney Bell Tours Meremere

Inspirational Dancer Rodney Bell Tours Meremere

The love of Rodney Bell’s life is his lightweight titanium wheelchair. It is his partner in dance and an extension of his body, allowing him to weave into his performances the elements of earth,…

Haunting Black Grace Dances Different Kind of Buzz

Haunting Black Grace Dances Different Kind of Buzz

In a New York Times review of their recent Joyce Theater show, Gia Kourlos describes Black Grace’s two Big Apple premieres as at times, “moody” and “breathtaking”. “This was especially true in ‘O Le Olaga…

Black Grace Profiled Ahead of US Shows

Black Grace Profiled Ahead of US Shows

“The formidable New Zealand national rugby union team performs a Māori war dance known as the haka before every match. Black Grace, the dance company created by Neil Ieremia, a New Zealander of Samoan…

Australian Ballet Principal Ty King-Wall Retires

Australian Ballet Principal Ty King-Wall Retires

When much-loved Australian Ballet principal dancer Waihi-born Ty King-Wall retires this month at 35, he could be forgiven for rushing to make up for some of the things he has missed out on, Catherine…

Parris Goebel in Nike Dance as Sport Campaign

Parris Goebel in Nike Dance as Sport Campaign

New Zealand dancer Parris Goebel is the creative mastermind behind some of the best choreography from your favourite pop stars, Maria Bobila reports for Nylon. So it’s no surprise, Bobila writes, that Nike recently…

Ballroom Culture Transforms QTPOC Community

Ballroom Culture Transforms QTPOC Community

Safe spaces for QTPOC communities in a country seen by the rest of the world as progressive are rare, but trans women are finding space and solace in Auckland’s balls, Beatrice Hazlehurst reports for…

Parris Goebel Dials in on Inclusion With Rihanna

Parris Goebel Dials in on Inclusion With Rihanna

Lockdown has been stultifying and depressing in its sludgy predictability for many of us – but for others, it has proved uniquely creatively fulfilling, according to British Vogue’s digital director Ellie Pithers. Take New…

Designer Kristian Fredrikson a Force of the Stage

Designer Kristian Fredrikson a Force of the Stage

Wellington-born stage and costume designer Kristian Fredrikson is celebrated in a new book by renowned Melbourne dance writer, curator and historian Michelle Potter. Fredrikson, who was born in 1940, took art classes at Wellington Polytechnic…

J.Lo’s Choreographer Parris Goebel Hidden MVP at the Super Bowl

J.Lo’s Choreographer Parris Goebel Hidden MVP at the Super Bowl

Parris Goebel is no stranger to being on a global stage. So she dived right in when given the assignment of a lifetime: choreographing for Jennifer Lopez, at the Super Bowl halftime show, Talya…

Royal New Zealand Ballet Has an All-Female Line-Up

Royal New Zealand Ballet Has an All-Female Line-Up

It’s fitting that New Zealand, the first country to give women the right to vote, should also be the place where, for the first time, a major ballet company will pre­sent an entire 12-month…

Black Grace Thrill in New York

Black Grace Thrill in New York

New Zealand contemporary dance company Black Grace wowed New York Times’ dance critic Brian Seibert during its debut season at the Joyce Theater with “an exhilarating, seemingly inexhaustible energy.” Seibert lauded the “unaffected style…

Dance Queen Parris Goebel Curates for UAE Expo

Dance Queen Parris Goebel Curates for UAE Expo

Celebrity choreographer Parris Goebel, 27, has been appointed head curator of the entertainment and cultural programme for the New Zealand pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai and will manage a series of events to be…

Brendan Cole to Wow Audiences with Anniversary Performance

Brendan Cole to Wow Audiences with Anniversary Performance

“Dancing supremo Brendan Cole is bringing his fantastic footwork to Bradford, with his latest spectacular show All Night Long,” which will show at the Alhambra on November 13, writes Helen Mead in an article…

Ballerina Delia Mathews Embraces Role of Lise

Ballerina Delia Mathews Embraces Role of Lise

Described as “the funniest, sunniest English ballet masterpiece”, the curtain comes up on La Fille mal gardée (The Wayward Daughter) at Belfast’s Grand Opera House this week, and it stars principal dancer Rotorua-born Delia…

Empower Yourself at a Parris Goebel Workshop

Empower Yourself at a Parris Goebel Workshop

New Zealand-born dancer Parris Goebel shares with Vogue how she is inspiring the next generation of women with her own success. When you ask an artist about what they consider to be their first big…

Pitchfork Fave Created by Parris and Ciara

Pitchfork Fave Created by Parris and Ciara

The Parris Goebel-choreographed “Level Up”, a track sung by American singer-songwriter Ciara, who joins New Zealand’s ReQuest Dance Crew on the dance floor, is one of American online music magazine Pitchfork’s favourite videos for July. “It’s hard…

Parris Goebel and ReQuest Stars of Ciara’s Latest

Parris Goebel and ReQuest Stars of Ciara’s Latest

New Zealand choreographer Parris Goebel and ReQuest Dance Crew have collaborated with Atlanta-bred pop star Ciara for the music video of her latest single, the “empowering anthem”, ‘Level Up’. “The visual features the singer showing…

Dance Prodigy Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson in Houston

Dance Prodigy Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson in Houston

The past year has been a whirlwind of events for professional ballet dancer Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson, Jonathan Guildford writes for Stuff. The Christchurch-born ballet prodigy has started his first professional job with the Houston Ballet company…

Rambert Chief Mark Baldwin’s Final Commission

Rambert Chief Mark Baldwin’s Final Commission

New Zealander Mark Baldwin, the “venerable” artistic director of Rambert, the UK’s leading contemporary dance company, is stepping down from the role to devote more time to choreographic work. Baldwin’s final commission “as the…

Fire Spinner Hale Wilson Showcases Moves in Darwin

Fire Spinner Hale Wilson Showcases Moves in Darwin

For New Zealand-born Samoan Hale Wilson, the art of fire spinning honours his culture and family history at the same time as looking cool. Wilson has carried his Samoan fire knife to Auckland, Brisbane and…

World Famous Parris Goebel On Her Trip to the Top

World Famous Parris Goebel On Her Trip to the Top

She’s made her mark as a fierce and unstoppable choreographer but it’s New Zealander Parris Goebel’s work ethic and ability to overcome barriers that has allowed her to emerge as a true icon. Fiona…

Dancer Brendan Cole Readies for Belfast Shows

Dancer Brendan Cole Readies for Belfast Shows

Ahead of his shows at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast this March, Strictly Come Dancing star New Zealander Brendan Cole, 41, tells Belfast Telegraph journalist Stephanie Bell why he is no longer the bad…

Hard Work Pays Off Says Dancer Lance Savali

Hard Work Pays Off Says Dancer Lance Savali

Lance Savali is currently working with music artist Chris Brown on the hip hop star’s Party Tour while travelling the world teaching workshops and brushing shoulders with superstars which have included Jennifer Lopez, Brandy…

Whangarei Highland Dancer off to Tattoo

Whangarei Highland Dancer off to Tattoo

Seventeen-year-old Whangarei student Shannon Vesey will be the only New Zealander to dance as part of the Tattoo Highland Dancers at this year’s Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo on in August. Vesey will join 49 dancers…

Alluring Role for Paris Ballet’s Hannah O’Neill

Alluring Role for Paris Ballet’s Hannah O’Neill

Hannah O’Neill, 24, a New Zealander who joined the Paris Opéra Ballet company in 2011, is “a beguiling” Titania, Paul Jennings writes in an Observer review of the Opéra Bastille performance of A Midsummer…

Parris Goebel a Feminist Hip Hop Force

Parris Goebel a Feminist Hip Hop Force

New Zealand-born commercial choreographer and dancer Parris Goebel has been named one of “25 to watch in 2017” by Dance Magazine. The magazine said: “Goebel is the feminist force hip hop has been waiting for….

Brendan Cole Talks Strictly Ahead of Liverpool Show

Brendan Cole Talks Strictly Ahead of Liverpool Show

Christchurch-born dancer Brendan Cole, 40, is currently putting together his new tour, All Night Long, which he will take to Liverpool in February. Local newspaper Liverpool Echo talks with Cole about the tour, and…

Raewyn Hill Making Dance Accessible to All

Raewyn Hill Making Dance Accessible to All

Chances are if you visited the Art Gallery of Western Australia recently you would have seen New Zealand-born Raewyn Hill and the Co3 dancers rehearsing for The Cry. The contemporary performance, that sees each…

Julliard’s Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson to Graduate

Julliard’s Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson to Graduate

Christchurch dancer Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson, who is understood to be the first New Zealander to be accepted by the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City, according to the Press, will graduate in May 2017. Guillemot-Rodgerson…

NZ Hip-Hop Dance Crew Wins Gold

NZ Hip-Hop Dance Crew Wins Gold

New Zealand hip hop dance crew the Bradas have won Gold in the adult section at the Hip Hop International’s World Hip Hop Dance Championship– “a week-long competition that crowns U.S. and world dance…

Ballet World’s Rising Star Harrison James

Ballet World’s Rising Star Harrison James

Some dancers take more than a decade to rise through the ranks of a professional ballet company. Others, such as the New Zealand-born Harrison James, manage a swift ascension in three quick seasons. The…

Dancer Kexin Li Reviving an Ancient Art Form

Dancer Kexin Li Reviving an Ancient Art Form

Before Kexin Li, a Chinese New Zealander, came to New York in 2008 to receive systematic training in classical Chinese dance, she cared little for performing arts or even physical exercise. It was after Li,…

Ballet Dancer Harrison James Impresses in Giselle

Ballet Dancer Harrison James Impresses in Giselle

National Ballet of Canada stars, Paraparaumu-born Harrison James, 25, and Russian Svetlana Lunkina “bring beautiful dancing and dramatic depth” to the 175-year-old production of Giselle, Toronto Star reviewer Michael Crabb writes. “Just because Giselle is…

Off Stage with Rihanna Tour Dancer Lance Savali

Off Stage with Rihanna Tour Dancer Lance Savali

Wellingtonian Lance Savali, 24, is a back-up dancer for pop queen Rihanna’s Anti World Tour, which will take him around the US and Europe. This latest gig follows what has been a whirlwind year for…

New Zealand Sky-High Trapeze Act in World Record Bid

New Zealand Sky-High Trapeze Act in World Record Bid

Anna Cochrane, a New Zealand paramedic, has performed a static trapeze act while suspended on a hot air balloon at an altitude of more than 3,000m, in a bid to break the world record,…

Designer Tracy Grant Lord Dresses Scottish Ballet

Designer Tracy Grant Lord Dresses Scottish Ballet

Aucklander Tracy Grant Lord is the brains behind the costumes and set of Scottish Ballet’s Cinderalla, a production originally created for the Royal New Zealand Ballet in 2007, which Grant Lord also worked on….

Choreographer Parris Goebel Born to Dance

Choreographer Parris Goebel Born to Dance

If you were one of more than 500 million recent YouTube views for Justin Bieber’s song “Sorry” and were dazzled by the dancing, know that the moves originated from the mind of New Zealand-born…

On the Road with Strictly Dancer Brendan Cole

On the Road with Strictly Dancer Brendan Cole

Britain’s Strictly Come Dancing star, New Zealand-born Brendan Cole breaks off from a journey to Blackpool to speak about this year’s show and his new tour, which will call in to Dorset early next…

Bcc Your Way into Brian Fuata’s New Show

Bcc Your Way into Brian Fuata’s New Show

As the Performa 15 biennial geared up for a month of performances throughout New York City in November, Wellington-born performance artist Brian Fuata and Australian curator Susan Gibbs’ performance began in cyberspace, causing smartphones…

Tamsyn Russell Amongst Scotland’s Hot 100 Cultural Contributors

Tamsyn Russell Amongst Scotland’s Hot 100 Cultural Contributors

New Zealand born dancer, teacher and choreographer Tamsyn Russell has been named amongst Scotland’s hottest cultural contributors of 2015. The Kiwi is listed 83rd on Scotland’s Hot 100 list, which is comprised of Scotland’s most…

Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Giselle a Triumph

Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Giselle a Triumph

The Royal New Zealand Ballet’s recent production of Giselle at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre was “gorgeous, and unashamedly traditional”, the Scotsman’s Kelly Apter writes in a review of the performance. “In an era when everything…

Dance Wunderkind Parris Goebel Gaining Traction

Dance Wunderkind Parris Goebel Gaining Traction

The New Yorker’s review of Justin Bieber’s latest “stellar” video, “Sorry” – perhaps “an acceptable cap to his year of penitence” – declares that, “it is impossible not to feel as if you would…

Justin Bieber calls upon Parris Goebel

Justin Bieber calls upon Parris Goebel

Popstar Justin Bieber’s latest dance music video “Sorry” features some “totally kickass dancers” led by New Zealand choreographer Parris Goebel. “Sure, they aren’t a former teen heartthrob turned bona fide artist that even grown-ass adults…

Kapa Haka Tale a Piece of NZ for Oxford

Kapa Haka Tale a Piece of NZ for Oxford

As part of Oxford’s Family Dance Week there is a one-off opportunity to see the haka live in a show performed by Corey Baker’s dance company, as part of a stunning new show called…

Burlesque Dancer Bonita Muntz off to Vegas

Burlesque Dancer Bonita Muntz off to Vegas

Christchurch burlesque artist Bonita Muntz, who performs as Bonita Danger Doll, is the first New Zealander selected to perform at the Las Vegas Burlesque Festival, held over three days, from 8-10 October. “This will be…

Hip Op-eration Crew Are Ageing with Attitude

Hip Op-eration Crew Are Ageing with Attitude

Waiheke-based Hip Op-eration Crew is the oldest hip-hop dance group in the world with 22 members and an average age of 81. Manager and choreographer Billie Jordan, 45, founded the group to inspire other…

Rosie Langabeer Flies Across Cultures with BalletX

Rosie Langabeer Flies Across Cultures with BalletX

Hosted by the Vail International Dance Festival, Philadelphia-based contemporary dance troupe BalletX performed New Zealand composer Rosie Langabeer’s “Sunset o639”, a classical ballet in which dancers tell an epic and tragic story. This time, their…