02 Jun 2009
Daniel Belton awarded Creative New Zealand Choreographic Fellowship
Acclaimed New Zealand choreographer and dance film maker, Daniel Belton has been awarded the 2009 Creative New Zealand Choreographic Fellowship to research and develop new work. Worth $65,000, it is the largest choreographic award or fellowship available in New Zealand.
Dunedin-based Daniel Belton is an established practitioner with an international reputation in dance film. A scholarship graduate from The New Zealand School of Dance, he has performed with a wide range of companies in New Zealand and Europe including the Douglas Wright Dance Company (NZ/Europe), Arc Dance Company (London/Europe) and The Royal Opera House Covent Garden (London). In 1997 Daniel Belton founded Good Company Arts with Donnine Harrison. Under Belton’s artistic directorship the award winning group has gained an international reputation for their unique multi-disciplinary approach involving commissions of dance, visual art, haute couture, design, new music, animation and film. In 2008, he was awarded the prize for most innovative work for After Durer (New Zealand, 2007) at the XV Festival Internazionale di Videodanza Madre Museum, via L. Settembrini, Napoli, Italy.
Alan Sorrell, Chair of the Arts Board of Creative New Zealand, says Daniel Belton is one of New Zealand’s leading dance film choreographers whose work is characterised by innovation and a multi-disciplinary approach.
“We are pleased to award Daniel Belton the 2009 Creative New Zealand Choreographic Fellowship as he is internationally renowned in the dance film genre,” Mr Sorrell says. “This fellowship is designed to recognise excellence and experience while offering the recipient the creative freedom to explore and make new work over a one-year period.”
Daniel Belton is honoured to be the recipient of this prestigious award. "The fellowship will enable me to focus on innovative new choreography for the screen inan exciting fusion of dance and visual arts with science. Being awarded the fellowship is a great honour. This is a wonderful opportunity for me, and I look forward to sharing the results of the new work which will come from it”
Previous recipients of this Fellowship are: Shona McCullagh (2004), Douglas Wright (2005), Michael Parmenter (2006) and Lemi Ponifasio (2008).
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