DANIEL COOPER (SENIOR TEACHER)

Daniel trained at The New Zealand School of Dance and graduated in 2001. After graduating he understudied and danced in Douglas Wright’s 2002 season of ‘Inland’ then went on to dance with Black Grace Dance Company. During his time with Black Grace, Daniel was honored to create two new works on the company, ‘Man’ in 2005 and in 2006 ‘Behind i’s’ was commissioned for the triple bill season, ‘Black Grace and Friends’.

Since then, Daniel has had the opportunity to choreograph for television (Stars in their Eyes, Montana Sunday Theatre “Life’s a Riot”) and was Assistant Choreographer for the much loved World Of WearableArt show. Daniel has also had the privilege of being Rehearsal Director/Choreographic Assistant for two of New Zealand’s leading contemporary dance companies, Okareka Dance Company and Atamira Dance Company. Most recently, Daniel has been on stage performing nationally and internationally with Atamira Dance Company, Douglas Wright Dance Company and Auckland Theatre Company as well as continuing his Choreographic Assistant work on Atamira projects ‘Moko’ by Moss Patterson and ‘Mitimiti’ by Jack Gray.

In the field of education, Daniel represented the Royal New Zealand Ballet as Dance Educator, facilitating workshops in schools, masterclasses, ballet for boys and theatre events for the public as well as working with Okareka Dance Company to initiate their annual Summer School. He has also enjoyed teaching professional level classes for IndependANCE, Atatmira Dance Company, Raising the Barre, Okareka Dance Company, World Of WearableArt and Unitec.