Contemporary Dance | NZ

Based in Auckland, Aotearoa - New Zealand, ​Foster Group ​showcases the work of choreographer Sarah Foster-Sproull.

We make provocative, engaging and visually compelling contemporary dance work,​ rich with beautiful imagery and physical rigour. Our work showcases strong, unique and diverse performers and design collaborators.

Projects


To Hold
Royal NZ Ballet

Exploring ways of holding and being held, To Hold is a love letter from a parent to a child. A movement poem for the conscious and subconscious mind.

Ultra Folley
Royal NZ Ballet

Responding to a period of isolation, Ultra Folly considers the tension between limited touch and full contact partnering.xx

In the Distance
T.H.E. (Singapore)

Exploring human connections as a form of migration, In the Distance visions the body as magnetic, flocking and discordant as it searches for place.

Double Goer
Foster Group

Two unrelated women are bound by an uncanny physical likeness, perform a surreal dance of déjà vu. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ORCHIDS
Orchids
Foster Group

Mesmerising imagery and spellbinding pathos, ​Orchids​ presents seven astounding women at different stages of their lives.d XX

Mass Solitude
Guangdong Modern Dance  (China)
& Footnote (NZ)

In a landscape defined by surveillance and communication technology we return to forgotten movement rituals to find a sense of belonging.

Inky Blue
NYCB / Choreographic Institute

My daughter started having seizures last year. She explained the experience as an inky blue place, where she walked with hybrid beasts.

Despite the Loss of Small Detail
Royal NZ Ballet

Inspired by 125 years of the NZ women’s suffrage movement this work explores the resonance of female power in the 21st century. is a project 

Forgotten Things
NZ School of Dance

Short scenes based on cell division, phagocytosis, family and hierarchy. Familiarity, isolation, frustration and hope mesh in moments of intimacy, loss and joy.

Artemis Rising
Royal NZ Ballet

A celebration work for retiring principal Abigail Boyle. Connecting the dancer and the iconic goddess of wild animals, young girls, the hunt and the wilderness.

Sisters of the Black Crow
Foster Group

A dark poem, exploring the duality of beauty and ugliness. Mythology entwines with personal experience blurring goddess and woman.

Colt
Footnote (NZ)

A personal message about the art of possibility and the things that we leave behind. Colt explores a community in the throes of creation.

Guangdong Modern Dance Company

Reviews

“(Orchids) is a fully evolved piece of work and very, very satisfying to watch. Over and over, motifs of movement and complexity and genuine beauty unfold across the stage and are wonderfully danced. This is a detailed work, as much about smaller movements as it is the big sweep of a dancer’s body. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen choreography that featured the dancer’s hands and fingers so much. It was utterly intriguing. This performance felt like a big moment; the arrival of a major new show and the audience were completely with it. A real highlight.”

Justin Gregory  |  Radio New Zealand

Regina, CA

“​Orchids​ is full of eros, pathos and humour. That it is greater than the sum of its exceptional parts is beyond doubt. Sarah Foster-Sproull and her team have crafted a lens through which we are invited to reimagine our mothers, sisters and daughters as goddesses. No matter our personal relationship to concepts of spirituality or divinity, it’s nice to remember that the imagination can sometimes reveal aspects of truth. And when portrayals of female superheroes seem scarce, we need only look around to realise they are in fact right beside us.”

Paul Young  |  ​The Pantograph Punch​

San Jose, CA

" Sarah Foster-Sproull's imaginative Forgotten Things was a real ensemble piece, very much in the mould of Crystal Pite. Refreshingly void of the usual contemporary dance tropes, the use of exposed hands and limbs to create skeletal imagery (such as spinal cords, deer antlers and impossibly long antelope legs) was exceptional. "

gerard davis  |  Dance Europe

"As a symbol of awakening and innocence little Ivy Foster is a force of nature that moves many of the audience to tears ...

It is perhaps the most honest examination of femininity that I have seen… The truth of women's relationships emerges: the enfolding warmth of support and nurturing versus the cut and thrust of unwarranted negativity and obstruction ...

The opening night audience gave an ecstatic standing ovation to ​Orchids​. It has been a work three years in the making and the fine crafting is much in evidence.”

Jennifer Stevenson  |  ​Theatreview​

Seattle, WA

" Double Goer continues the careful investigation of embodied imagery that distinguishes Foster-Sproull’s body of work. An image can be a revelation—especially one that breathes, coughs, and sweats. Foster-Sproull’s work unfolds with a painterly devotion to the contours of form. She works with images as embodied situations that register as bursts of meaning: familiar enough to conjure memory, strange enough to lead you into wonderment. "

Amit NoY

New York City, NY

" Quite simply, Foster-Sproull would hold her own on any of the worlds top dance stages, and deserves a place there. "

Laura Capelle  |  Financial times (UK)

About

Our company ethos is to uphold integrity and authenticity both in our work and practice - with a specific focus on building community around the company with audiences and other practitioners.

We engage performers and collaborators on a project basis, selecting whoever is best suited to the work’s vision.

Artistic Director and Choreographic Facilitator, ​Sarah Foster-Sproull​, is a critically acclaimed and award-winning choreographer. Sarah has dance work in the repertoire of The Royal New Zealand Ballet​, ​Footnote NZ Dance​, ​T.H.E. Dance Company ​(Singapore), ​Tamsyn Russell​ (Edinburgh/NZ), ​VOU ​(Fiji), and ​The New Zealand Dance Company.​ Future work is currently being currently developed for ​Co3 (Perth), ​Okareka Dance Company​ (Auckland, NZ) and Footnote NZ Dance (Wellington, NZ).

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