Dance fans have a chance to see the work of former Hawke's Bay dancer turned designer Donnine Harrison up close this coming Friday night.
Harrison designed the shimmering, space age-like costumes for Satellites, one of five pieces in Allegro: Five Short Ballets, currently touring the country and being performed by the Royal New Zealand Ballet in Napier on Friday.
Satellites, partly inspired by the artists of the Bauhaus movement, was choreographed by her husband Daniel Belton, also an ex-dancer and with whom she co-founded Good Company Arts with in Dunedin in 1997.
Harrison left Napier for the New Zealand School of Dance in Wellington at the age of 17, having spent the previous 12 years as a very enthusiastic pupil of the Shirley Jarrett & Anne Bradley Academy of Dance.
Improvisation classes were a particular highlight, she recalls. "Learning to create my own movements made me fall in love with dance even more."