Fuataga with Black Grace through thick and thin

Choreographer Sam Fuataga (centre) and dancers Sean McDonald (left) and Daniel Cooper. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Sam Fuataga, one of Black Grace Dance Company's senior stars, is a reluctant choreographer. His latest piece, Stars on Sunday, nevertheless features in the New Works programme that opens at the Maidment Studio tonight.

Fuataga has been with Black Grace since the company's inception 10 years ago and has a warm and powerful stage presence as well as a beautiful singing voice, so his confession to being "a bit quiet and shy" and of finding choreography "a challenge" comes as a surprise.

"I don't really enjoy it," he says. "But I do it because it helps me."

The New Works programme is an annual event for Black Grace. The shows have always been a hit, because they highlight individual personalities and talents.

Contributing choreographically is optional, says Fuataga.

"It is up to us whether we do it or not. But I do it because it makes me speak out, which I don't really like doing. The choreographic process helps me articulate what is in my head - to say it out and do so as clearly as possible.

"And I do it because it is another tool for us, and because we get to experience what it is like on the other side."

Stars on Sunday is inspired by a collection of memories he holds of growing up in Cannon's Creek, Porirua, and specifically of regular Sunday attendances at church.

"I had an uncle, who I won't name, who was a church usher and took his job very seriously," says Fuataga. "He would get all dressed up, slicked and polished, so he looked more like a bouncer than someone who was there to simply greet people. And he would wave his arms around like a traffic officer. Me and my friends always laughed."

And then there was the minister's wife, a firm and disciplined woman who would clip the ears of the kids around her if they got the slightest bit out of hand.

Stars on Sunday draws on a boyhood full of such memories, is danced by Sean McDonald and Daniel Cooper and promises to be very funny indeed.

Other works in the programme are by Cooper, McDonald and Jeremy Poi, on themes as varied as the metamorphosis of a father/son relationship, a three-storey building and clowns. A group piece, entitled Scrabble is about "all of us, enjoying our individual, favourite and quirky ways of dancing", according to Fuataga.

Black Grace founder and artistic director Neil Ieremia is also offering a preview of a new work in progress.

Fuataga and Ieremia are best friends as well as colleagues and have known one another since high school days.

While Ieremia began choreographing as a young teen, "at the Baptist Church down the road" Fuataga's first love was singing, and at 21, he embarked on a music course at Whitireia Performing Arts School, specialising in vocals.

"I was quite serious about my singing but Neil was in his last year of performing arts and dancing for Douglas Wright and he inspired me to give dance a go."

Fuataga studied cultural and contemporary dance from 1992 through to 1994 at Whitireia School and discovered he enjoyed "the whole physicality of it".

Ieremia came to the school to create a work on Fuataga's student cohort in 1994, and the following year invited Fuataga to join the fledgling Black Grace. Fuataga gives his decade of dance a rating of 10 out of 10 for satisfaction.

"It is such a full life," he says. "I have experienced the highest of highs [like his father, who did not initially comprehend his son's passion for dance, attending Black Grace's first show and glowing with pride and understanding afterwards] and the lowest of the lows [like a loss of confidence and motivation during the last Wellington International Festival of the Arts, leading to some serious re-evaluation of what he wanted from life].

"I took a break," he says, "and that made me realise I actually couldn't do without dance. And I just snapped out of it. The whole experience has left me feeling a lot wiser and a lot more sure of myself.

"And through everything there has always been the camaraderie of belonging to Black Grace - especially in the tough times and the times of change."

Performance

* What: Black Grace New Works

* Where and when: Maidment Studio, to April 20; Wed-Sat 7.30pm, Sun & Tue 6pm