Image: NZSD contemporary dance students Millie Carey, Amelia Tapsell, Miere Christensen-White & Mia Raeli. Photo by Stephen A'Court

MOANA Showcase

The Moana Showcase returns to the Pacific Dance Festival with a powerful line‑up of new works from the next generation of Pacific and Aotearoa dance artists. Featuring choreographers and dancers from UNITEC School of Dance and the New Zealand School of Dance, this year’s showcase is a vibrant collision of ideas, identities, and movement vocabularies — a space where emerging talent steps boldly into the spotlight.

Across eight original works, audiences will experience everything from intergenerational storytelling to urban‑Pacific physicality, from meditations on land and belonging to the restless tension of waiting. The Moana Showcase is where new voices rise, new languages form, and the future of Pacific dance takes shape.

UNITEC School of Dance Works

Image Credit: Jinki Cambronero

Nothing Leaves the Parade

Choreographers: Wiseman Zekaria Mataiti & Tai’ulagi Paulalei Hogue

At what point does a parade stop being just a parade?

In Nothing Leaves the Parade, bodies shift, pull up, and take space inside a moving system where spectacle, vā, and collective memory continuously remix themselves. Driven by live DJing, recurring siren calls, and a physical language rooted in South Auckland and Pasifika lived experience, this work unfolds as an environment rather than an event.

Humour cuts through tension. Performance sits beside excess.

Nothing settles — because once the signal lands, the parade has already begun.

Whip Snap

Choreographers & Dancers: Praise Tupa’i & Nikita Black

Image Credit: Jinki Cambronero

Two vocabularies collide. Minds sync. Suddenly the room speaks one language.

Whip Snap teases the line between unity and illusion — a duet that asks whether harmony is real or brilliantly faked. It’s sharp, playful, and charged with the electricity of two dancers in perfect (or perfectly deceptive) alignment.

Pupa

Choreographer: Mya Fisher (Te Āti Awa)

Image Credit: Jinki Cambronero

Pupa explores transformation as a state of constant negotiation. Through shifting physical landscapes and evolving identities, the dancers move through resistance, adaptation, and renewal. Rather than presenting change as linear or resolved, the work embraces instability and uncertainty as essential parts of becoming. It is intimate, searching, and deeply embodied.

New Zealand School of Dance Works

The Heilala in the Concrete Garden

Choreography: ‘Isope ‘Akau’ola in collaboration with dancers

Inspired by the great Māori and Pasifika bands of the 60s and 70s, this work explores what it means to uphold the mana of the moana within an urban landscape. A celebration of cultural pride, nostalgia, and the resilience of Pacific identity in the city.

Image Credit: MC6303 - Pacific Dance - NZSD contemporary dance students Millie Carey, Amelia Tapsell, Miere Christensen-White & Mia Raeli. Photo by Stephen A'Court

to stand, and again (forever)

Choreography: Mia Raeli

A gentle meditation on land, rain, and belonging. This work moves like a quiet conversation — soft, curious, and grounded in the textures of place. It reflects on learning, listening, and becoming small again in the presence of whenua.

In the Meantime

Choreography: Amelia Tapsell

A solo that sits in the tension of waiting — restless, impatient, slightly on edge. The work plays with the urge to check the time while resisting it, exploring what it means to simply “wait it out.” It’s a raw, relatable portrait of being suspended between what was and what’s next.

Image credit: MC6449 - Pacific Dance - NZSD contemporary dance student Miere Christensen-White. Photo by Stephen A'Court

Why the Moana Showcase Matters

The Moana Showcase is more than a platform — it is a launchpad.

A space where emerging Pacific and Aotearoa artists test ideas, take risks, and carve out new choreographic pathways.

Across these works, you’ll find:

• bold experimentation

• cultural depth and innovation

• intergenerational storytelling

• contemporary movement vocabularies shaped by lived experience

• the future of Pacific dance unfolding in real time

This is where tomorrow’s choreographers begin — and where audiences get a first look at the artists who will shape the next decade of Pacific performance.

Don’t Miss the Moana Showcase at Pacific Dance Festival 2026

If you want to experience the freshest voices in Pacific dance — this is the night to be there.

👉 Book your tickets and be part of the movement

The future of Pacific dance is here — come witness it.