The Black Grace dance company arrived in Dunedin on its national "Grass Roots Tour", which features a collection of dance pieces choreographed over the past decade.
"It's contemporary dance which has been strongly influenced by our choreographer Neil Ieremia's Pacific island background," Black Grace spokeswoman Helen Langford said yesterday.
"It's very high energy and very physical and very rhythmic. There's lots of bare bodies and slap dancing."
The Auckland-based dance troupe has been visiting Otago high schools during its national tour and held a dance workshop at Logan Park High School yesterday.
"The school workshops are an important part of what we do. We help people move from a school level to a professional level," Mrs Langford said.
"We have a strong commitment to dance, and to Maori and Pacific island dance, in particular."
The company will perform three concerts in Otago over the next few days, featuring complete works and excerpts from dance pieces such as Surface (2003) and Amata (2007).
The repertoire also includes Minoi, a work based on the fusion of Samoan and Western contemporary dance styles, Method, which was commissioned by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in 1999, and Human Language, which is a provocative work which examines the physical language between men and women.
Black Grace will perform "The Grass Roots Tour" in the Regent Theatre at 7.30pm today and on Sunday in the Lake Wanaka Centre at 2pm and 7.30pm .
