Nel­son Design­er Gill Saun­ders was award­ed The World of Wear­able Art’s Supreme Award this Fri­day for her design, Earth­ling (pic­tured). Tak­ing its inspi­ra­tion from the ris­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty of adult colour­ing books and pro­mot­ing mind­ful­ness in a “world under increas­ing stress”, Earth­ling cel­e­brates earth’s nat­ur­al won­ders in a beau­ti­ful­ly craft­ed gar­ment made from EVA foam, acrylic paint, and wire.

Run­ner-up Chi­a­ki Shimizu’s SAMURAI GIRL is her first ever entry to the com­pe­ti­tion, and also won the Avant-Garde sec­tion award this year. A strik­ing piece of inter­wo­ven studs, shapes and met­als, this pow­er­ful design would absolute­ly stun on the bat­tle­field.

110 final­ist entries from twen­ty-three coun­tries walk the run­way dur­ing this year’s World of Wear­able Arts show. With over 100 dancers, per­form­ers and aeri­al­ists as well as innu­mer­able amounts of crew, this show is absolute­ly incred­i­ble, invit­ing us all on an inter­galac­tic trip to six gor­geous plan­ets — Mars (& Beyond), Aotearoa, Open, Avant-Garde, Gold and Cafe Bizarre (Bizarre Bra).

Bloom­ing Proof! — Mars & Beyond — Pho­to cred­it: Stephen A’Court.

 

The dancers act as sci­en­tists in the first sec­tion of the show — Mars & Beyond - explor­ing the weird and won­der­ful alien crea­tures cre­at­ed by our design­ers. A young actor wear­ing a robot suit is joined on stage by sev­er­al actu­al robots (styled some­what like NASA’s Per­se­ver­ance and Curios­i­ty rovers), and soon our sam­ples are col­lect­ed, and we blast off to the next plan­et, Aotearoa.

The plan­et of Aotearoa is a won­der­ful mix of Māori taon­ga and solarpunk future. A full sized waka rolls onto stage, angu­lar but still unmis­tak­able, and we’re drawn into the world with dancers in deep red out­fits — whirling and pow­er­ful upon the stage. What is the show­stop­per of this round of designs is Craig McMil­lan’s Child-Hood, as well as the win­ner of the cat­e­go­ry — a giant wood­en wētā which is pushed along the stage by a per­former lying flat on their stom­ach inside it. It is non­sense, and won­der­ful; but that’s the appeal of WOW, isn’t it?

Child-Hood — Aotearoa — Pho­to cred­it: Stephen A’Court.

 

Our third plan­et is Open - a dig­i­tal odyssey, where dancers dressed in light strips stride out into the audi­ence, scan­ning us. This world is tech­ni­cal and cyber­punk-inspired, puls­ing with light and strobe beats; hear­ing the THX sound and Crazy Frog (Axel F) in the sound track with­in the same three min­utes near­ly sends me to my grave. This cat­e­go­ry of designs ranges from the absurd to the deeply engi­neered, and our win­ner of the entire show — Gill Saun­ders’ Earth­ling — wows amongst them all.

SAMURAI GIRL — Avant-Garde — Pho­to cred­it: Stephen A’Court.

 

The plan­et of Avant-Garde holds an under­ground civil­i­sa­tion, ruled over by a cult leader — our vocal­ist of this part: Jax­son Cook. As we land on the world, a con­tor­tion­ist bal­ances on a box in the cen­tre of the stage, then draws a archery bow with their feet, fir­ing an arrow towards the back of the stage. It is an incred­i­ble feat of bal­ance and strength. Avant-Garde is exact­ly what you’d expect it to be; wild and weird designs, unearth­ly shapes and mate­ri­als.

Dig­i­tal Ascen­sion of Kit­sune — Gold — Pho­to cred­it: Stephen A’Court.

 

Our penul­ti­mate stop on this whis­tle-stop tour of the uni­verse is Gold, a plan­et heav­i­ly inspired by ancient Egypt­ian stylings. Glit­ter­ing bright in the stage lights, these stun­ning designs play on pre­cious met­als, sun wor­ship and celes­tial bod­ies.

Vir­tu­al­ly the Same — Bizarre Bra — Pho­to cred­it: Stephen A’Court.

 

A delight­ful final piece takes us to Club Bizarre for the Bizarre Bra sec­tion of the show. Our vocal­ists from the entire show join each oth­er on stage along­side all our per­form­ers for a sec­tion that is as deliri­ous and diverse as the city it’s being staged in. Don­na Sum­mer’s I Feel Love puls­es through the venue as our per­form­ers strut and weave in a gen­der-bend­ing mias­ma of move­ment.

WOW is an show unlike any oth­er. The sheer scale and tal­ent with­in, both on and off stage, is utter­ly worth expe­ri­enc­ing. As a fiend for space and any­thing space-relat­ed, BEYOND absolute­ly tick­led me, immers­ing me amongst a world where any­thing is pos­si­ble. Hats off to the cast and crew of this year’s event for an expe­ri­ence that is utter­ly out of this world!