About 20 dancers in black wetsuits performed in Saltlines for Sealion Women, on Saturday, choreographed by University of Otago 2025 Caroline Plummer Dance Fellow Dr Carol Brown.
The performance, which was part of the 2025 Wild Dunedin Festival, drew a large crowd of curious people, who lined the Esplanade and the raised embankment at the start of beach.
Dr Brown, who grew up within walking distance of the beach in South Dunedin, is the head of dance at the University of Melbourne Victorian College of Arts.
She said the dance was inspired by the growing presence of sea lions around Dunedin beaches, and how people were adapting to their presence.
Sea lions were inspiring for her as she believed they were empowering for women because they had a tough life birthing pups and finding safe spaces to fish and keep refuge.
Her six-month residency project was a community dance work centred on recovery, safety and kinship.
He said he made the music with organic instruments, including skin, wood and old acoustic guitars, which gave it a "real authenticity".
The acoustic guitars had been detuned to give a "submerged feeling".
Mr Scoones used a sample from the 1939 recording of Sea Lion Woman, sung by the African-American Shipp Sisters, of Missouri.
"It’s a very famous song, and it’s got a fantastic beat.
"I’ve kind of channelled a bit of that beat into some of the sections, just to try and reference some of the works that have gone on before about people who have worked in this area with the sea lions and the sea."
