New Zealand to hold National Day at Expo

WELLINGTON - New Zealand's National Day at the Shanghai World Expo will feature some of the country's most exciting young artists.

Performances by the brilliant young Wellington-born soprano Aivale Cole, the Footnote dance company, Moana Maniapoto and Tribe and the NZTrio will be featured at the Shanghai Expo Center on July 9 -- the day New Zealand is given center stage at the expo.

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Aivale Cole is the winner of numerous awards and won last year' s Lexus Song Quest. She is already establishing an international reputation and is acknowledged as one of the most exciting singers New Zealand has ever produced.

The Footnote Dance Company, under the directorship of dance icon Dierdre Tarrant, is a group consisting of contemporary dancers, based in Wellington.

Footnote will perform Purlieu, especially commissioned for the expo and choreographed by Malia Johnston, to music composed by Eden Mulholland. The work  explores the preciousness and precariousness of small spaces -- a theme very relevant to the expo's theme of "Better Cities -- Better Life."

Vocalist and lyricist Moana Maniapoto and her group have been one of the most successful indigenous bands to emerge from Aotearoa New Zealand. The band fuses traditional Maori dance elements with contemporary song, dance and kapa haka.

The chamber music group NZTrio, comprising pianst Sarah Watkins, violinist Justine Cormack and cellist Ashley Brown have established a strong following in New Zealand and a wide reputation overseas. They will perform works by New Zealand composers John Psathas ("Helix") and Wayan Yudane ("Entering the Stream").

Event Director Dilys Grant said New Zealand's cultural performance program for the National Day would present a "positive and sophisticated contemporary image" of the country and its people.

There will be three performances -- the first around the official launch of New Zealand Day and two later in the day. Dilys Grant said the 70-minute evening performance will be "an emotional and visually strong work which will take the viewer on a journey through song, voice, image film and dance."