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.