Review: Beau and Aero and Poet vs Pageant

Port­land phys­ic­al theatre com­pany A Little Bit Off make their New Zea­l­and debut at Te Aua­ha with Beau & Aero: Crash Land­ing. They were the San Diego Fringe Out­stand­ing Phys­ic­al Theatre award win­ners in 2017 and I can see why. Pilot Beau (Dav­id Can­tor) is brash, over­con­fid­ent and prone to get­ting a little too involved […]

Review: FA’AAFA and Big J Stylez

These were pos­sibly my most anti­cip­ated shows of this year’s Fringe.  FA’AAFA is presen­ted by FAFSWAG, an Auck­land based col­lect­ive of artists who cel­eb­rate LGBTQ Pacific Islander cul­ture. I’ve seen the pho­tos, watched the inter­act­ive doc­u­ment­ary, and read about their work so I was excited to see them in this year’s Fringe. Big J Stylez […]

Review: Future Playground

Future Play­ground  is a series of booths in Shed 6 which explore digit­al artistry. There are VR videos, games and exper­i­ences along with aug­men­ted art*,  light sculp­tures, and even a music­al med­it­a­tion to try. (Sadly I didn’t have time to try SUBPAC Sound Med­it­a­tion. Every­one try­ing it looked very peace­ful.) There are a lim­ited num­ber […]

Preview: Fringe shows to 11 March 2018

The Fringe Fest­iv­al has offi­cially star­ted (YAY) and here is some pub­li­city for shows that sent us their pub­li­city. (Also check out the fol­low­ing – u can heal my life, Big J stylez, FA’AAFA , Sound and Fury: Live Art party. ) Par­don me Alan Tur­ing on at BATS Theatre to 4 March 2018 Thou­sands of gay […]

Review: Rushes

Circa Theatre has been trans­formed into a series of per­form­ances areas fea­tur­ing music, video, and con­tem­por­ary dance. The audi­ence fol­lows the per­formers as they move through dif­fer­ent spaces until we all end up at the same stage. Rushes is a fas­cin­at­ing and con­tra­dict­ory exper­i­ence. It’s excit­ing to see Circa opened up even though it’s hid­den […]

It’s Festivals time!

It’s almost that glor­i­ous point in Wellington’s cal­en­dar when the New Zea­l­and Fest­iv­al  (23 Feb­ru­ary – 18 March), the Per­form­ance Arcade (23–25 Feb, 1–4 March) the Pride Fest­iv­al (24 Feb­ru­ary – 10 March) and the NZ Fringe Fest­iv­al Wel­ling­ton  (2–24 March) are all on at the same time. I love it for the excit­ing mix […]

WOAP 17: Concrete, Glasshouse, Hillside

How are we all going with Wel­ling­ton on a Plate then? As we tweeted today, there’s no less than three altern­at­ives to the offi­cial site in order to help you nav­ig­ate your way to a bur­ger (One, two, three). Maybe they’ll be incor­por­ated next year? In the mean­time, here’s what I’ve been eat­ing Lock Stock […]

WOAP 17: wine and whisky

It’s day five of this year’s Wel­ling­ton on a Plate and the city seems to be buzz­ing. So let’s get down to it. Here’s two events I went to on Sat­urday. Tapas & Tast­ings with Matahi­wi Wines at Avida Bar Wood­fire & Whisky at Ster­ling Tapas & Tast­ings I wrote about this last year, which maybe […]

WOAP 2017: Portlander

The Portlander at the Rydges Wel­ling­ton is well-known for its beef – they are a steak res­taur­ant after all. So of course their new­ish head chef decided to do a chick­en bur­ger for Wel­ling­ton on a Plate, because it was his chance to do some­thing dif­fer­ent. I was lucky enough to be invited in to […]

Film : Where There Is Life

The task of caring for his ter­min­ally ill wife Mar­garet falls squarely on the broad shoulders of Steph­en Lee. He would not have it any oth­er way. Wel­ling­ton film maker Gwen Isaac’s obser­va­tion­al doc­u­ment­ary was shot over the four years fol­low­ing East­bourne woman Margaret’s dia­gnos­is with motor neur­on dis­ease. We watch as the focus of the […]