Scores of early-risers gathered at St Clair Beach before sunrise on Saturday to watch about 12 performers dance their way along the beach, and into the rising sun as it broke over the horizon.
Those watching the performance, called ‘Saltwater Feet’, donned headphones to listen to the accompanying music — casual dog walkers who stumbled into the crowd to view the performance instead listened to the breaking waves.
The dance was part of the 2026 Wild Dunedin Festival.
Saltwater Feet dramaturg Fiona Graham said the dance looked at the relationship between sealions, and aimed to envelop watchers with the natural landscape around them.
‘‘Part of the festival is about looking at ecology and the returning of the sea lions, and how that’s significant now for us facing climate change and rising seas — it’s about thinking ‘what can we learn from them’.’’
She said humans and sealions needed to learn how to ‘‘work together’’, inhabit the same spaces with respect and live side by side in the world.
Dancers performed ‘‘into the dawn’’, beginning their dance at one end of the beach and moving towards the sun as it rose at the other end.
Each wore a black wetsuit, and began the dance knee deep in the tide.
Ms Graham said the dance is always being further developed, and they expected it would be performed as part of the Dunedin Arts Festival next year.
It was the second year the event has been held at St Clair Beach. The dance was again choreographed by Dr Carol Brown, and Dunedin-born Russell Scoones composed the accompanying music.
