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 […]