Cactus Fear

"poetry is a blind man
trying to catch a fish with his bare hands
in the liquid, poisoned mirror"

Douglas Wright is an award-winning choreographer, dancer and author. In 2000 he was one of the five inaugural laureates chosen by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand. His first memoir, Ghost Dance, won Best First Non-fiction Work at the Montana Book Awards 2004. The sequel Terra Incognito followed in 2006. In 2007 Steele Roberts published his first book of poems, Laughing Mirror. Douglas was born in Tuakau, South Auckland in 1956. After dancing with Limbs of Auckland, the Paul Taylor Dance Company of New York and DV8 Physical Theatre in London he returned to New Zealand in 1987 to form his own company. The Douglas Wright Dance Company tours extensively throughout New Zealand, in Australia, New York and Europe. His numerous works of dance-theatre include: How on Earth (1989), Gloria (1990), Elegy (1993), Forever (1993), Buried Venus (1997), rose and fell (1997), Arc (1999), halo (2000), Inland (2002) and Black Milk (2006). In 2011 the Auckland Arts Festival commissioned the dance-theatre work rapt which premiered to critical acclaim.