Capital E National Arts Festival
While the urb­an­ites of the ‘ista are all cur­rently abuzz about the Fringe Fest­iv­al, those amongst us who are par­ents (yes, we exist) are more excited about the Cap­it­al E Nation­al Arts Fest­iv­al set to hap­pen from March 11–23.

Dur­ing the weeks, the Fest­iv­al runs an edu­ca­tion pro­gramme, so expect to see bus loads of school chil­dren in town going from show to show (Cap­it­al E are also fun­drais­ing to make sure that low decile schools can come along too – maybe that’s some­thing you want to con­trib­ute to?). On the week­ends though, the shows are open to the pub­lic, and they look pretty fant­ast­ic. I got my hands on one of the gor­geously designed pro­grammes and also did a little googling, and now I can tell you about all of the shows! Buckle up, cos this will be a long post.

Sky Dan­cer is described as a sym­phon­ic work com­posed espe­cially for chil­dren by Gareth Farr, inspired by the Witi Ihi­maera nov­el. It prom­ises the full 96 piece New Zea­l­and Sym­phony Orches­tra on stage, and I’m told it aspires to be the NZ equi­val­ent of Peter & The Wolf in terms of being a great way to intro­duce chil­dren to clas­sic­al music. I’m tak­ing my kids along, and will be get­ting them to write the review, so look out for that soon. It’s a world premiere, so I can­’t tell you what oth­ers thought of it.

The Magic Chick­en has been very well received, and fea­tures Arthur Meek, who you might remem­ber as Helen Clark’s lov­er. Hand­ily, there’s a video!

The Man Who Planted Trees is based on a French book, so hand­ily, we can quote from Wiki­pe­dia here.

The Man Who Planted Trees (French title L’homme qui plantait des arbres), also known as The Story of Elzéard Bouf­fi­er, The Most Extraordin­ary Char­ac­ter I Ever Met, and The Man Who Planted Hope and Reaped Hap­pi­ness, is an alleg­or­ic­al tale by French author Jean Giono, pub­lished in 1953.

It’s got a bit of an envir­on­ment­al theme, fea­tur­ing a mix of pup­pets and storytellers, and has come all the way from Scot­land.  Here’s a video from their per­form­ance at the New Vic.

Down Beneath Below is anoth­er new work by Java Dance. This dance piece was cre­ated in response to Our Far South pro­ject from the Mor­gan Found­a­tion (which is what Gareth Mor­gan’s found­a­tion does when it’s not busy hat­ing on cats). You’ll see pen­guins, albatrosses and seals all frol­ick­ing glee­fully. I’m warned though that adults who see this may feel like they have no flex­ib­il­ity at all because the dan­cers are very bendy.

Like It Or Loop It is from the very busy Adam Page. He’s been trav­el­ing out to vari­ous schools to gath­er sound loops from every day activ­it­ies from brush­ing your teeth to drib­bling a bas­ket­ball, which he’ll com­bine on stage to show there’s music in everything.

You’ll have seen a shot from The Man The Sea­saw all over town because it’s what they’re using for the Fest­iv­al pub­li­city, but really you need to see this video. Be pre­pared to laugh and cry.

Te Rau o te Ran­gi  is par­tic­u­larly rel­ev­ant to a Wel­ling­ton audi­ence, because it tells the story of Kahe Te Rau o te Ran­gi, who swam from Kapiti Island to the main­land with a baby strapped to her back to warn of an impend­ing attack. This piece by Taki Rua  is being per­formed at the marae in Te Papa, and very awe­somely, is free. What a great chance to learn more about loc­al his­tory and also about the marae.

Duck, Death and the Tulip might actu­ally break your heart. But in a good way? It’s based on the inter­na­tion­ally cel­eb­rated book by Wolf Erl­buch, which Kim Hill calls her favour­ite book of all time (and which you can buy at Unity Books). This book has been called con­tro­ver­sial by some, because it does involve death (in fact, not just death, but also Death, the Grim Reap­er), so if you’re wor­ried about your kids see­ing it, maybe have a read of the story first. Some people have found it a really use­ful way to talk about death with chil­dren, so your mileage may vary.

Finally, Kaput and its clumsy star Tom Flanagan should­n’t be con­tro­ver­sial at all, so long as you’re keen on some Chap­lin-esque acro­bat­ics. Here’s a taster:

Oh, and a final sug­ges­tion- you can book all tick­ets through Cap­it­al E dir­ectly (either online, at their pop-up box office in the City Gal­lery Wel­ling­ton) or by call­ing them on 913 3740, and that way you can avoid the Tick­etek fees.