National Dance Archive Oral History Project 2025

National Dance Archive Oral History Project 2025
 
The National Dance Archive of New Zealand is pleased to announce the commencement of our next oral history project. Three dance practitioners have been chosen with diverse backgrounds. We are also thrilled to boast having fully funded this project through our own fundraising efforts. Once completed the project will be deposited with the Alexander Turnbull Library, which holds all of our previous oral history projects as well as many other oral histories of dancers and people from dance-related disciplines.
 
Background
Over the past several decades the National Dance Archive has commissioned some 48 Oral Histories of prominent dance practitioners in New Zealand, to date they have mainly been from ballet and contemporary dance backgrounds. All of these interviews have been deposited with the Alexander Turnbull Library, where they are available to be listened to, pending permission from the National Dance Archive, and possibly further access restrictions the interviewee may have stipulated.
Previously, funding for the various projects has been from a variety of sources. These include grants from the Lotteries Commission, QEII Arts Council in past years and more recently the Ministry of Culture and Heritage. The current project, however, will be paid for from our own funds, which have been realised from fundraising events, such as film nights, and generous donations. If you are one of those who have contributed in recent years, we thank you again for your contributions.
As with many of our recent oral history projects, the project will be carried out by Lyne Pringle. This includes conducting the interviews and abstracting the recordings. Our thanks also to Lyne for her contribution and ongoing support.
 
Interviewees
The National Dance Archive’s current oral history project has selected three prominent dance practitioners in New Zealand. Having made a significant and distinctive contribution to dance in New Zealand, the interviewees are Tanemahuta Gray, Vivek Kinra, and Trish Popperwell.
Each has charted a course within the New Zealand dance community, with various twists and turns, that have kept them involved for long periods of time.
 
Tanemahuta Gray is a trained dancer in Contemporary Dance, Ballet and Kapa Haka (traditional Māori cultural performance). He is highly trained in mau rākau / taiaha, the Māori stick-fighting martial artform. He is also highly trained as a harness-based aerialist, and has worked with world leading aerial physical theatre company De La Guarda for 5 years.
Tanemahuta is also a choreographer & artistic director of numerous live theatre productions including Maui—One Man Against the Gods (2003-2011), Arohanui—The Greatest Love (2011), Tiki Taane Mahuta (2009–2014), and Te KōwhitiFestival of Indigenous Dance that ran for four years (2009-2013).
Tanemahuta has acted in several theatre and physical theatre works over his career & in his first feature film as a werewolf in What We Do in the Shadows directed by Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement (2014).
He is a guest choreographer/Director of the South Pacific Section (and dancer) for the World of Wearable Art Awards (2010–2013). Tanemahuta has also been Director of Whitireia Dance Programme and Taki Rua Productions.
 
Vivek Kinra is an internationally renowned dancer, choreographer and teacher of the Indian classical dance form of Bharata-Natyam and he has performed successfully in India, Russia, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. He has an ecstatic quality of passion and precision in his dance, which makes him memorable and sets him apart.
Since early 1990, Vivek has been teaching in Wellington, New Zealand. He is the artistic director of the Mudra Dance Academy (previously known as the New Zealand Academy of Bharata-Natyam), which he established in 1992. The Academy is flourishing with a large number of keen students and is the foremost institution in New Zealand for training in this dance style. It also plays an important role in cultural awareness and identity in New Zealand's ever growing multicultural society.
Vivek has given lecture-demonstrations to various organisations, including the New Zealand School of Dance, the New Zealand Drama School, Victoria University of Wellington Music Department and the Royal New Zealand Ballet.
During his illustrious dance career in New Zealand, Vivek has created numerous new thematic dance productions with a blend of traditional and innovative concepts, which he has performed with the dancers of the Mudra Dance Company. His performances have consistently been received with rave reviews and large audiences. He was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM) in 2010 Queen's Birthday honours for his huge contribution to New Zealand dance. In February 2015 he received the Absolutely Positively Wellingtonian Award for his outstanding contribution to Wellington through his work with Indian classical dance.
 
Patricia (Trish) Popperwell (nee White) danced with the New Zealand Ballet in the early 1960s before moving to Auckland and working on C’Mon and Happen Inn as a dancer and choreographer. When she returned to Wellington she taught for some years at the New Zealand School of Dance, choreographed numerous productions for the Wellington Operatic Society and taught programmes at Les Mills. Now based in Wanaka, Trish continues dancing and has joined the RAD Silver Swans programme.
Trish’s journey through the world of dance shows that a career is not necessarily a single path but can have twists and turns leading in different directions but still maintaining a love and involvement with the artform.

Trish Popperwell teaching a Jazz class at the NZ Scool of Dance with Alison Pond, Turid Revfeim, and Karen Wakefield.