Viva Eclectika, Aotearoa’s leading intercultural dance and music challenge, is set to explode on Saturday 27 August, 7pm at the Dorothy Winstone Theatre in Auckland as part of the New Zealand Diversity Forum.

Organised biennially by the New Zealand-Asia Association, Viva Eclectika has for the last few years been associated with the New Zealand Diversity Forum. Viva Eclectika will be in Auckland where the art of intercultural dance and the language of intercultural friendships are spiced with prizes totalling over $4000 alongside the opportunity to perform at the Aroha Mardi Gras in September, a Rugby World Cup event.

“Traditionally, diverse communities showcase their heritage dance(s). Beyond this, the New Zealand-Asia Association encourages them to dance together in a nouveau art form. There is at least one dancer from each of the cultures portrayed and there is a minimum of two distinctively different cultures. It is about the performers going beyond their comfort zone to collaborate, recreate and dance together,” says Vivian Chow, who conceived the idea of Viva Eclectika.

The evening will open to the resounding beats of Taiko drumming by the NZ Japan Society with participants rising to the echoes of the challenge.

Contestants in this year’s Viva Eclectika will cover a wide range of cultures:

· Dancers from AUT University’s Bachelor of Dance course will perform with new friends from New Zealand Chinese Association Auckland to portray a mythical journey of Maori warriors, a ten-foot golden dragon, Princesses and protectors

· There is a blend of authentic Middle Eastern, Polynesian and Brazilian cultures in an elegant and titillating rendition of “Feminine Essence”. With Mana-O-Hula and the Brazilian Divas, Tais Belly Dance will weave the mystique, the power and the aura of the feminine

· The University of Auckland Indian Club and new friends from the Oasis for Dance School in Glen Innes will portray that love is without language in a synergy with an Indian, Iraqi and Greek twist.

· North Shore’s Hato Petera College and the Intercultural Fusion Stars from Albany will explode with a message through the synergy of dance from the Ukraine, Burma, and Latin America

· Macleans College will present a mystical adventure across Aotearoa’s landscape in search of an eternal treasure

· Kapa Haka from Glendowie College with community dancers from SGINZ (Soka Gakkai International of NZ) will showcase their hybrid fusion of Asian, Latin American, European and Maori cultures

· There is also the Connolly Irish Dancing School showcasing the combination of Celtic and Maori cultures; Neelima’s Dance Group showing Indian, Tuvuluan, Irish and English and the Limit Break Crew in Samoan and Irish