Atamira Dance Company
Sean MacDonald
Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Raukawa
Atamira Sean 23nd May 165 2021 06 05 053122
Sean has worked as a freelance contemporary dancer in Aotearoa for over 25 years. He trained at Auckland’s Performing Arts School (1991-1992) and Wellington’s New Zealand School of Dance (1994). He has been in association with Atamira Dance Collective since its inception in 2000, firstly as an audience member and then as a dancer/performer from 2006.

He has performed in Maaka Pepene’s “Memoirs of Active Service”, Moss Paterson’s “Moko” tour to Beijing and Seoul, Kelly Nash’s “Ma”(Manaia Season) and “Atamira” and Gabrielle Thomas's "Tomo". Sean is part of "Te Wheke" a major new Atamira work which premiered in 2021. As a choreographer Sean has also worked with the New Zealand Dance Company to create the family work "Matariki for Tamariki".

His new work "Ngā Wai" with Atamira premiered in November 2020 and traveled to Sean's whenua Waimarama in 2021
Atamira Body Island KIKO 16344747 JC00158 hires

Repertoire 
A duet - KIKO (2022) 


Two beautiful people who know each other well being asked to perform set movement that came from random provocations to a piece of music. Made by someone who knew not what he was doing or after. Mauriora.


Repertoire
A brief encounter with Oli Mathiesen and J S Bach - KIKO (2022)


Choreography credit: Oli Mathiesen

The brief - Oli to choreograph a 1.5 minute piece in 2 hours. Completed. Everything was decided in that time; theme, costume, music. All came together by the chance metho


"A soulmate dance, wairua breathing in rhythm, they move wisely and efficiently, and love enduringly. Attuned and yet individual. Queer soma as the holistic body."
- Jaqs Clarke, Theatreview (2022) 

0 Q8 A8794

Repertoire 
STILL - Kaha-Tripleboost (2022) 


A meandering through yesterdays curiosities. Of exuberance and melancholy, a clicking of snapshots..taking a pun(t) on (re)moving through a musing connectivity of randomly logical bone & muscle poetics. Presentation and internal. The stillness of anxiousness. A body influenced by the sequencing of time, a dance.


"His detailed expressions tells of joy, of curiosity, of struggles and triumphs. We are privy to his inner dialogue as he reflects over memories of his own and of others, all whilst cloud-gazing out the window of this wharenui."
- Natasha van Etten, Theatreview (2022) 

ADC Nga Wai 4

Repertoire
Ngā Wai (2020) 



Drawing on mythology and historical figures set against the backdrop of Te Motu-o-Kura, Ngā Wai is a new full-length dance work from one of Aotearoa’s most distinguished dance artists – Sean MacDonald (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Raukawa)


Seers, shapeshifters, warrior protectors, lovers and thwarted romance from both history and mythology form the essence of this poetic new work inspired from the sacred waters and whakapapa of Waimārama, Sean’s ancestral home in the Hawkes Bay. Ngā Wai is about water and how that flows with everything, is in everything, the pool and flow of the moon and the maternal. It flows with connection, history and strength following the journey of Takitimu (migration waka) from Samoa to Waimārama.


"The name adhering to the plurality of waters that exist in ourselves, landscapes, and the cosmos we inhabit, we flowed into community to share stories. The Q Theatre was moving with whānaunga gathered... it was a maze of re-activating relationships inclusive of our lingering gaze, and touch."
- Dr Tia Reihana-Morunga

Sean MacDonald's work