During his career Douglas Wright established himself as New Zealand's leading contemporary dancer and choreographer. He started out with the Limbs Dance Company in 1980, then worked in New York with the Paul Taylor Company and DV8 Physical Theatre in London before forming the Douglas Wright Dance Company in Auckland in 1989. During this time he created over 30 major dance works, which culminated in his 2006 masterpiece 'Black Milk', his last major work. The dance critic Jennifer Shennan wrote, 'In my opinion, this is Wright ...
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During his career Douglas Wright established himself as New Zealand's leading contemporary dancer and choreographer. He started out with the Limbs Dance Company in 1980, then worked in New York with the Paul Taylor Company and DV8 Physical Theatre in London before forming the Douglas Wright Dance Company in Auckland in 1989. During this time he created over 30 major dance works, which culminated in his 2006 masterpiece 'Black Milk', his last major work. The dance critic Jennifer Shennan wrote, 'In my opinion, this is Wright's, New Zealand's, and dare I say it, the world's finest choreography. I dare.' Black Milk is a permanent record of this extraordinary piece of dance theatre, built largely around the remarkable images of Auckland photographer John Savage. When seeing these images Douglas Wright commented: When I saw John's first pictures of a performance I felt that here, for the only time in my experience in photography, someone had managed to capture the breathless sorcery of live dance-theatre without pulling its wings off. With photographs from both the rehearsal process and the performance itself, Savage has created a powerful body of work that is much more than just a record of a dance theatre piece, but rather, a separate work. The photographs are supported by text from Douglas Wright, himself a gifted writer, about the making of 'Black Milk', as well as an essay by Leonard Wilcox about the work. This is a unique book, like no other in New Zealand. It has its genesis in one of the most important performance works of our times, but stands alone as a beautiful and compelling book that will be enthusiastically received by the New Zealand performing arts community.
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