Taiaroa Royal Photo: supplied
If it wasn’t for disco, Taiaroa Royal might be best known as a farmer. Not one of Aotearoa’s most celebrated dancers and choreographers.
On Friday Royal became a 2023 Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi Laureate. In a career spanning more than four decades Royal has been a major creative presence within our most distinguished dance companies: Limbs, Atamira, Black Grace, Royal New Zealand Ballet, Michael Parmenter and Douglas Wright Dance Company, performing all over the world.
Okareka Dance Company's 'K'Road Strip - A Place to Stand' successfully toured New Zealand in 2013 (pictured). Photo: SUPPLIED / Okareka Dance Company
However, as the name of Royal’s own dance company Õkāreka suggests, he’s increasingly looked to his tūrangawaewae for strength.
Of Te Arawa, Ngāti Raukawa, Uenukopako, and Kāi Tahu descent, Royal has returned to where he grew up, the family farm on the banks of small Rotorua lake Õkāreka.
A young Taiaroa Royal does ballet Photo: supplied
It was in the Bay of Plenty when Royal, aged 15, became the region’s disco dance champ. Royal subsequently left a horticultural degree, got himself a place in the National Ballet School and has been dancing professionally ever since.
Taiaroa Royal in Mitimiti by Jack Gray. Photo: supplied
Royal is working as a choreographer and dancer on this year’s World of Wearable Arts in Poneke, 20 September to 8 October.
