A look at our trip to Brisbane and Hong Kong through the eyes of one of the fabulous Footnote Dancers
The shuttle pick up was earlier than ever before. But I think all seven of us were quite excited to start our dance journey to Brisbane and Hong Kong. We flew first via Sydney to Brisbane, Anita and Erynne’s home city. We drove to Queensland University of Technology and coaxed our stiff muscles into moving with a warm up and workshop with the third year students. The students were keen to share some ideas with us and we based the workshop on That Feel Good Factor. We then performed parts of our 2008 Made in New Zealand<. That night we drove to The Kooralbyn Resort in Beaudesert where we stayed in accommodation supplied by the Gleeson’s (Erynne’s family). After a great night’s sleep and much to our amusement, we were greeted by kangaroos across the river when we woke up the next morning. The next two days were spent in Beaudesert filled with workshops and performances at Beaudesert High school (Special Ed Unit and Performing Arts) and St Mary’s Primary, both Anita’s old schools. Dinner at the local RSL and also at Anita’s home were highlights of the week as well as watching Bangarra perform in Brisbane at the Arts Centre.
After having a couple of days to explore Brisbane we re-united and it was another extremely early pick up to fly to Hong Kong. Flying in over Hong Kong was spectacular. The view was incredible and as Hong Kong is so small, it was great to get a sense of where everything was from above. The trip from the Airport gave us sights of apartment building after apartment building but we were all blown away by the view of Kowloon from our hotel rooms at the Harbour View International House in Wanchai. It was only a hop, skip and a jump over the road to the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. We took daily class with the students and our teachers were Raewyn Hill, Jaime Redfern, and John Utans. On the last day we were joined by the dancers from the City Contemporary Dance Company who were beautiful and had a wonderful calm and unified vibe. The Footnote dancers were split into two groups for rehearsals. Jeremy, Jesse and Erynne and half the students were with Raewyn working on, and Hannah, Anita and I and the other APA students with a lovely lady called Joy who made a really interesting piece on us. We didn’t get to see what each other had been working on until the last day which made the informal showing all the more exciting. We performed Te Mana; to give the Hong Kong students a taste of New Zealand contemporary dance culture, and we were all impressed with how much we achieved in the week. Nest is a beautiful piece.
We were honoured to be invited to the New Zealand High Commissioner’s home, up on the Peak. Luckily it was a clear evening and the view was beautiful. We saw the Hong Kong Ballet perform Tricolor, a program consisting of & Suite en Blanc by Serge Lifar, Antony Tudor’s Lilac Garden, The White Swan Pas de Deux from Swan Lake, and Balanchine’s Rubies. For me the white Swan Pas de Duex was the most memorable piece. It was just exquisite. After shopping, eating, a trip to Ocean Park, a lot of heat and an incredible amount of rain, it was time to come home. This time it was a relaxed journey on Sunday evening back to the airport to board the plane bound for Sydney and then Wellington. An amazing trip for all of us and I’m sure we all brought home different but very special memories.
-Sarah Knox
