The Rugby World Cup and You, Too

Despite Hadyn’s ear­li­er post we know there’s a rea­son­able pro­por­tion of you out there (just as among the Welling­ton­ista itself) that are rel­a­tive­ly meh about this whole World Cup thing.

But what­ev­er your opin­ions about the event, it has to be acknowl­edged that a lot of effort has gone into the asso­ci­at­ed off-field activ­i­ties, many of which even com­mit­ted rug­by-phobes are like­ly to enjoy. There’s plen­ty of these to check out on the RWC Welling­ton web­site. So many though, that we think that it’s worth high­light­ing a few in par­tic­u­lar we’d like to get along to.

Start­ing with those with a def­i­nite rug­by link­age:

• Kris pre­viewed upcom­ing the­atre a cou­ple days ago. Of those, Cir­ca’s I, George Nepia (7th to 16th Sep­tem­ber), about the leg­endary full­back of the 1924 Invin­ci­bles, looks very inter­est­ing.
• Black Grace — Neil Ieremi­a’s dance com­pa­ny returns to the Opera House on 12th and 13th Sep­tem­ber with a pro­gramme that includes the most amus­ing and beau­ti­ful game of rug­by this Welling­ton­ista has ever seen — yes, accord­ing to the event page, 2001’s rug­by-themed New Reli­gion is back!
• Out at Island Bay’s Wake­field Park on 1st Octo­ber, the Kio-o-rahi Poneke Fes­ti­val: a day of a tra­di­tion­al Māori ball game (which luck­i­ly comes in touch and rip­pa vari­ants!) togeth­er with “food and cul­tur­al activ­i­ties includ­ing kite mak­ing and fly­ing and ‘Poi-olympics.’”
• Michel Tuffery Exhi­bi­tion at the Solan­der Gallery (218c Willis Street) — Lakapi (Fif­teen Aside): a “series of new wood­cuts inspired by New Zealand’s rug­by his­to­ry” (this is where our post­ing pic­ture comes from).
• Learn how to do the haka prop­er­ly! At Te Papa “Ka Mate – The Exhi­bi­tion lets you learn about the haka: its mean­ing, ori­gins, asso­ci­a­tion with sports, and – impor­tant­ly – how to do it.” Which will no doubt come in handy in the com­ing weeks.
• Give it a Try is Cap­i­tal E’s (Civic Square) green screen recre­ation of a world cup win­ning try, with YOU as the star. We sus­pect this will work nice­ly for those of you with kids, because after all, we are all far too cool to be seen doing this one. Um…

Then there’s those that have been put on as part of the cel­e­bra­tions but which aren’t nec­es­sar­i­ly rug­by-in-con­tent:

• Phoenix Foun­da­tion at Car­ni­vale — the infor­ma­tion for this is a bit sketchy at the moment: there are a num­ber of free gigs over the peri­od but the exact pro­gramme yet to be made pub­lic. How­ev­er the Phoenix Foun­da­tion’s web­site says 29th Sep­tem­ber and 7th Octo­ber, and if it’s only a frac­tion as mag­i­cal as their leg­endary Valen­tine’s Day 2008 gig at Frank Kitts’ Park many of us will be rapt.
• The NZ On Screen instal­la­tion on the water­front by Te Papa, ship­ping con­tain­ers show­cas­ing NZ film, TV, short films and music videos. (And if you are very atten­tive, you may even spot a cer­tain very very young Welling­ton­ista in one of the clips!)

But in the end, it might be that for some of you the mer­est hint of that fif­teen-a-side team game is just too much. For you, short of pulling the cur­tains and hid­ing under the bed­cov­ers for a month, life is going to be hard. So here’s a cou­ple of sug­ges­tions that might help:

• Ocea­nia at City Gallery Welling­ton and Te Papa – a selec­tion of the best in con­tem­po­rary art from the Pacif­ic, and a look at the his­to­ry of the peo­ple. These exhi­bi­tions have already been inspect­ed for rug­by con­tent by a Welling­ton­ista, and there is appar­ent­ly “Not a men­tion of the leather egg!”.
• Find­ing a qui­et bar with like-mind­ed friends, off the main drag and with no TV screens, and bar­ring the door behind you. We can think of one like­ly can­di­date…!

Please let us know (com­ments below) of any oth­er must see RWC or com­plete­ly non-RWC activ­i­ties that we should be attend­ing. And good luck. What­ev­er hap­pens in the next month, we’re in for a busy time.