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.