As Night Falls performed by Black Grace Photo: Duncan Cole & Neil Ieremia
This weekend's 30th anniversary performance by the dance group Black Grace is "not a retrospective".
It says so on the label.
It's more of a dance show that then turns into a dance party.
At least that's the hope of Black Grace founder and director, Neil Ieremia.
As well as his troupe of dancers, Ieremia has assembled a stellar cast of musicians for the event including NZTrio, Che Fu, Tha Feelstyle, DJ Manuel Bundy and drag queen diva Buckwheat.
The plan is to set up enough space in the Auckland Town Hall so that as the night goes on, everyone can get up and dance if they feel like it.
There will be a one reprise from Black Grace's first performance in 1995 - "Purple Haze," Ieremia's response to the Kronos Quartet version of the Jimi Hendrix classic, this time performed live by NZTrio.
Dancing trailblazer Neil Ieremia Photo: supplied
Speaking ahead of the 30th anniversary gig, Ieremia told RNZ Concert's Bryan Crump he hopes the group is set for another 30 years.
It was always his hope that Black Grace would outlast him, Ieremia said.
Dancing has been Ieremia's life from a young age. His first public performance was dancing to an Amy Grant song at a church gathering.
It was one thing to dance for his church, but quite another to tell his parents that - at the age of 19 - he was giving up his job at a bank to dance for a living.
His mother cried. His father didn't talk to him for a while.
Ieremia remembers staying with an aunt in Manurewa in South Auckland where he took the train into town every day to do a dance course.
His mother would ring up at night to ask him if he'd got the "dance thing" out of his system.
He hasn't.
However, Ieremia's parents came around. They mortgaged the family home to finance Black Grace when Ieremia founded the company 30 years ago with a group of ten male dancers of Pacific, Māori and New Zealand heritage. These days there are also women in the group.
An extraordinary act of love, and an extraordinary investment in what has become a New Zealand cultural institution, which won Ieremia a 2005 Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Award, and in 2016 an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to dance.
Dance was always part of Ieremia's life as a Samoan growing up in New Zealand, but he also wanted his choreography to reflect the working class urban world he grew up in. His home suburb is Cannons Creek, Porirua.
Ieremia's parents are still alive and live in Hamilton these days.
They won't be able to make it to Black Grace's party this weekend, but we hope they're proud of what their son has done.
The nation's cultural scene is certainly grateful for what they helped to make possible.
