TAWA5 Best Late Night Experience

Things get a little different in town once the sun goes down. For many, including us, this is the best time of day. What do we do in the darkness? Well that would be telling, but these are the places you’ll find us.

TAWA5 Best Shopping Experience

Stuff, glorious stuff,  oh how we love to take you home with us.  These are the places we go to window lick, tire kick and buy, buy, buy.  Love your work, people.

TAWA5 Best Regular Entertainment

As we know, Wellington is full of fun things to do, and on a regular basis. Whether giving us something to eat, something to groove to, or something to yell about, these are the events that kept us coming back for seconds.

TAWA5 Best Art Experience

Art experiences often don’t require wordy explanations, but whatever these experiences could be classed as, they definitely moved us.

TAWA5 Best Live Performance

Wellington is a great going-out town with gigs galore on any given night. These are the events that stuck with audiences and totally made us blab all over Facebook about how awesome they were.

On a Mission

Did Apollo 13: Mission Control do the business, flick my switches, get lift-off etc?

Wheel Stylish: the Cycle Chic Fashion Show

Fabulous fashion + beautiful bikes + Wellington women = Wheel Stylish! Bikes are back baby (not like they actually went anywhere) and there is *such* a range of cycling experiences to be had.  You’ve got your hipster fixie rider, your lycra-clad fit freak, your sensibly attired public servant with the backpack who did not get […]

Soundstage: Strike Percussion and Warren Maxwell

Wellington musical collaborations are so hot right now, with the pulsing funked out drama of Eru Dangerspiel cramming more than 15 musicians and a damn choir onto the stage at the Town Hall last night and Rhian Sheehan’s outstanding show at the Opera House in June it seems that being all lush and orchestral and big is, well, big.  The spores of certain Welly super-groups can be found in basements all over Wellington collaborating on new projects, getting back together with each other, going solo again, it is bloody hard to keep up! 

 

Those Twinset boys seem to be slutting it all over town and Warren Maxwell has managed mix it with NZSO (as Little Bushman) plan a couple of shows with a reformed Trinity Roots and work on new material with Strike Percussion.

 

Phew.

 

A little taster of the full length show brewing between Warren and Strike will be on offer at Downstage this Sunday as part of the Soundstage series.  There will also be some fresh reinterpretations of Strike and Little Bushman classics (this girl is looking forward to seeing what they can do with Corrupt Demeanor).  Looks like there may be another guest musician spot too, so once again time to have a few less $5 flat whites and book tickets.

 

What: Strike Percussion and Warren Maxwell

Where: Downstage theatre

When: Sunday 17 October

Cost: $35

Image by Dominika Zielinska from a set of live rehearsal shots.

Deadly decisions

The thing with theatre is you have to make up your mind to go and not prevaricate, seasons are short and good shows sell out.  Downstage has been hitting the sweet spot recently with sell-out shows like Guru of Chai and the Soundstage series that looks to become an institution.  If you are shy of theatre and not really sure what you would like you should consider booking tickets for Deadly now because you wont be disappointed and the season ends 23 October.

Deadly’s tagline is ‘circus with bite!’ and the performance explores the arch of a relationship using the 7 deadly sins as a device to draw us into the dark sides of a passionate coupling.  It opens with a couple devouring each other, literally biting into each other, they start out sensual and become increasingly aggressive and demanding.  The audience is nodding to themselves, thinking, "Ah, gluttony – ticked that one off. Now, what were the other deadly sins again?" 

10/10/10

I think it is safe to say a few of us were snoozing at 10:10 on 10/10/10 (I think it is also safe to say a few of us were snoozing as the deadline to register for local body elections passed…)

However more than a few people have been spending the day taking some practical action against climate change the old fashioned way with the 350 Global Climate Working Bee.  More than 30 working bees were registered by Wellingtonians with plenty of people putting their shovel where their mouth is and getting out in the garden, taking the wae wae express, fixing up old bikes, going to film fundraisers (probably heading out the door now) and insulating their homes.

 

It feels bloody great to do something rather than just signing an online petition dontcha think?

 

On a totally different kick at 8.00pm tonight for those that do like it live and virtual UpStage is back again beaming live cyberformance all night long (with a short intermission) until 4.30pm Monday 11 October NZ time.  If you are wondering WTF ‘cyberformance’ is check out the teaser below.

[video:http://vimeo.com/15442973]