The New Zealand Dance Company is an Auckland based, nationally focused contemporary dance company with a vision to create accessible, inspiring, high-calibre dance productions, grow audiences for dance in New Zealand and to provide ongoing career opportunities, mentoring and tutelage for the country’s finest dancers and choreographers. We are a high calibre community of artists and supporters. We are dedicated to producing and presenting inspiring new dance for New Zealand and the world. We exist with the genuine desire to change the way New Zealanders see and experience contemporary dance, to stretch the boundaries of what dance can be and to share its power, beauty and humour with a broad audience. Our vision is to create new connections to dance by staging compelling works in highly engaging ways that not only entertain but resonate emotionally with the audience. Established in 2011, by co-founders Chief Executive/Artistic Director and Arts Laureate Shona McCullagh and the founding General Manager Frances Turner, the company sought to break the paradigm of dance companies operating on a project by project basis, presenting work by one choreographer, and moved instead to a sustainable model of presenting a variety of choreographic works developed by a suite of emerging, mid-career and experienced practitioners. The company provides a platform for both senior and emerging dancers to have viable careers in New Zealand. The formation of this company has seen senior dancers returning to New Zealand to share their international experience and expertise. Subsequently, younger, emerging dancers benefit from the experience of mentoring, training and dancing in professional high-quality productions. The New Zealand Dance Company provides a place for artistic excellence, creative mentoring, and growing job creation.