With NASDA’s season of Kiss Me, Kate coming to a close, the spotlight is now well and truly on the directors who brought this production to life.

Co-directors/choreographers Diane Laurenson and Bob Richard from Pennsylvania have spent four weeks in rehearsal with the NASDA students, in the kind of environment reserved only for professional performers, as they worked Monday-Friday 9am-5.30pm.

This type of experience with internationally-renowned performers and condensed exposure to international directors is the first of its kind at this Christchurch tertiary performing arts’ school.

NASDA’s head of programme Simon Goudie said, “This is the first time ever. We’ve had international shooters here before, but they’ve been in for, like, two hours on a whim, for something else that’s happening around the place.”

“This would be the biggest, most boldest, adventure that we’ve embarked on and hoping that everything falls into place, that we shall continue to build off it rather than it just be a fleeting moment,” Goudie said.

He said that after a series of international and national meet-ups with the Laurenson and Richard over the years through dance conventions, they were able to hatch a plan to bring the duo to Christchurch “to help NASDA grow its exponential footprint”.

Goudie said bringing this kind of talent to Christchurch was also to let people know that NASDA is “open for business and that we’ve got lots of great things going on here. We’re living up to our world class teaching, but just giving Kiwi kids the opportunities to be able to work with people that are actually in the American industry, this is a tier we haven’t featured in before.”

“Last year we approached Ara’s CEO Darren Mitchell through the Ara Foundation to see if we could get some form of assistance, and we were lucky enough to get an Ara Foundation grant, which sort of sealed the deal for us to be able to push forward with this plan,” Goudie said.

“There’s been lots of community involvement with help, in the wider community as well, who have assisted us with accommodation and other things. So it hasn’t been just a NASDA dream on its own, but a lot of people on the fringes helping us get it together as well, which has been part of what we’re trying to do: open ourselves back up again and let the community know what NASDA’s up to and that the training here is just as good as anywhere else,” he said.

Both Laurenson and Richard’s portfolios are rich in dance, directing, and performing, notably on Broadway but also on a wider international scale.

And, not that Laurenson will tell you, but she was also the original dance captain for internationally-acclaimed choreographer and dancer Bob Fosse.

[VIDEO: Diane Laurenson and Bob Richard working with NASDA students / Grae Meek and ARA Marketing Team]

It is the third-year NASDA students that take up the leading roles in Kiss Me, Kate, with ensemble support from second years, and backstage help from first-year students.

Richard said that this experience with NASDA students “is a dream come true. We are blessed to be in a room with 44 artists, their foundations not yet solidified, and we’re here to be a part of helping to shore that up and give them a good foundation as they go out and bring a different perspective and a different vision and to build off of what has been built for these kids from the training they’ve already been given here at NASDA.”

“It’s nothing new that they’re already being taught but sometimes, when you hear it from another voice, you hear it differently and you grow from it,” Richard said.

Laurenson said, “It’s been such a treat to be in that [rehearsal] room and to share, to give and to learn from them. They’re so eager, open and willing to work with us – which is such a treat.”

Richard said, “They [the students] don’t normally work this way. They work in the afternoons, so they have school regularly in the mornings and then perform in the afternoon. But they’re getting a full dosage of us! They’re also getting used to what a professional schedule would be. It’s a full day’s rehearsal, five days a week although, back home, it’s six days a week.”

Laurenson said, “From our approach, normally when we work together and we come in to mount a show, we are coming into professionals that have had years of training and we’re here for the direction, the choreography, get it done, go. But, here, we are also adding in education, perspective and, like we said before, building off of what the [NASDA] teachers have already laid – the foundation, and we are just trying to continue that.”