Douglas Wright

Who is Douglas Wright?

Douglas James Wright, MNZM, is a dancer and choreographer in the New Zealand arts establishment from 1980 until his retirement from dance in 2008 on the occasion of the publication of his first book of poetry, Laughing Mirror.

Wright was born in Tuakau, South Auckland in 1956. From 1980 - 1983 he danced with Limbs Dance Company and choreographed a number of works on the company before travelling to New York where he danced with the Paul Taylor Company, 1983–1987 and London with DV8 Physical Theatre, 1988. Returning to New Zealand in 1989, he formed the Douglas Wright Dance Company, with which he created more than 30 major works, touring New Zealand, Australia and Europe. Reviews of many of his dance works can be found in Sidestep, the archive of New Zealand dance writing.

In the 1998 Queen's Birthday Honours, Wright was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to dance.

In 2000 Wright received one of five inaugural Arts Laureate awards from the Arts Foundation of New Zealand and in 2003 he was the subject of an award-winning feature-length documentary film, Haunting Douglas, directed by Leanne Pooley for Spacific Films.

He has written two volumes of semi-fiction/semi-autobiography, Ghost Dance and Terra Incognito, also hosted an inaugural one-man exhibition of his paintings and multimedia sculptures, and in October 2007 a poetry collection, Laughing Mirror was published by Steele Roberts. A second collection of his poems, cactusfear was published by Steele Roberts in October 2011 and a retrospective exhibition of his work as a choreographer, based on photographs, films and writing, was held at The University of Auckland's Gus Fisher Gallery in 2012.