Just before my Welling­ton­ista priv­i­leges are removed due to, erm, non-com­pli­ance with accept­able post­ing chronom­e­try (or some­thing) here’s an update on every­one’s favourite pro­fes­sion­al the­atre, Down­stage.

Last week they launched their new Sea­son brochure, “Life in High Def­i­n­i­tion”, which lists all the shows between now and Christ­mas. High­lights are many, but include new plays by Jo Ran­der­son (Good Night — The End) and Stu­art McKen­zie (Biog­ra­phy of My Skin, star­ring his wife Miran­da Har­court), Col­laps­ing Cre­ation (by the team that brought you On the Con­di­tions and Pos­si­bil­i­ties of Helen Clark Tak­ing Me as her Young Lover last year) and the return of beloved cir­cus-the­atre show Ada­gio with extra, added, Christ­massy bits.

Also on the menu between now and Novem­ber is Sound­stage, Down­stage’s new ven­ture into the world of pop­u­lar music: Once a month Sun­day evening shows fea­tur­ing favourite local bands in a relaxed, the­atri­cal set­ting, the first act is The Wool­shed Ses­sions on Sun­day night short­ly fol­lowed by Lit­tle Bush­man on 2 August. The Wool­sheds are so pop­u­lar that the Sun­day evening show has almost sold out and an extra 3pm mati­nee has just been added. Seats are lim­it­ed and going fast.

Tonight the “Life in High Def­i­n­i­tion” sea­son gets under way with the return of two of Down­stage’s best friends: Strike Per­cus­sion always raise the roof with their high ener­gy, high pre­ci­sion per­for­mance. This time they are joined by the vir­tu­oso Aus­tralian impro­vi­sor Adam Page who wowed Welling­ton audi­ences with his solo show dur­ing the Fringe. They have been col­lab­o­rat­ing on new work, com­bin­ing Strike’s hit­ting things with Adam’s blow­ing into things and the results are explo­sive.

Adam will also be doing his usu­al mul­ti-instru­men­tal impro­vi­sa­tions (with Strike sup­port) so no two shows will be the same.

You can down­load a pdf of the “Life in High Def­i­n­i­tion” brochure here, or con­tact theatre@downstage.co.nz and ask for a paper one to be sent out to you. Inter­est­ing­ly 90% of Wool­shed book­ings have been over the web at www.downstage.co.nz which is pret­ty remark­able. Also, today, Down­stage have launched TradeMe Tues­day — a chance to get Down­stage tick­ets for as low as $1 reserve. It’s a bit like Grabaseat — check in to the TradeMe Down­stage Store every Tues­day for more spe­cials.

Cel­e­brate win­ter with a bang! The sec­ond annu­al Petone Win­ter Car­ni­val is a major one-day fes­ti­val cel­e­brat­ing the very best of win­ter on the icon­ic Petone fore­shore.

The car­ni­val will fea­ture an eclec­tic pro­gramme of free live music, visu­al arts, dar­ing cir­cus acts, fun-filled fam­i­ly activ­i­ties and the spec­tac­u­lar finale — the annu­al Pelorus Trust Fireshow — along the Petone fore­shore Sat­ur­day the 18th of July from 2pm to 7:30pm. What bet­ter way to cap off an excit­ing day of Car­ni­val activ­i­ties than wit­ness­ing Petone’s very own fire­works show from the beach.

We rec­om­mend grab­bing a bite to eat, before or after the show.  Local restau­rants and cafes are going to be open ear­ly for the event.  How about try­ing the new Malaysian restau­rant, the Palms or Welling­ton­ista favourite, Gus­to.  

This Sat­ur­day is the main event for Welling­ton’s Japan Fes­ti­val which kicked off 6 July with the Friend to Friend exhi­bi­tion in the Fletch­er Chal­lenge Foy­er.  The organ­is­ers Asia New Zealand Foun­da­tion, Welling­ton City Coun­cil and the Embassy of Japan (along with the spon­sors of course) are always bring­ing us beau­ti­ful free cul­tur­al events. 
 
Thanks for that.

Our recent guest poster was right­ly excit­ed about Music Fair of Japan that is part of the Japan Fes­ti­val, unfor­tu­nate­ly both con­certs are ful­ly booked. Zan­nen desu ne!  How­ev­er don’t despair, there is plen­ty of Japan­ese cul­ture to par­take of:

• Food and Craft mar­ket runs from 1.00pm until 8.00pm
• Cul­tur­al Show from 1.30pm until 7.00pm
• Friend to Friend Pub­lic Speak­ing Con­test from 2.30pm until 4.00pm (for all of you out there that think that they might sit their pro­fi­cien­cy test ‘one day’)
• Tea Cer­e­mo­ny from 3.00pm until 4.00pm

More details can be found on the asia:nz web­site (now with RSS for their event cal­en­dar).

If you don’t make it along, don’t for­get that the Japan­ese Embassy runs free movie nights on the last Tues­day and Thurs­day of every month at 6.00pm. They often spon­sor oth­er free events that usu­al­ly book out fast.  You can find details on their web­site here.

Tanoshi so desu!

We have a guest post for you by the vol­u­ble Anna Jane Wil­son who also likes hats, boots, coats and scarves.

My good­ness, it’s already July — I can’t quite believe we’re halfway through our Roman cal­en­dars, but all evi­dence says — 10 July 2009. July, albeit cold and windy in this won­der­ful city, is going to be a large one.

The four main things that keep me warm in win­ter are jazz, walk­ing, films, and dance. I’m new to Welling­ton, but appar­ent­ly this city has a lot of jazz, thus, my soul will be kept very warm.

con­tin­ues after the jump…

Hav­ing observed a steam­ing hot urn of it at the South­ern Cross on Sat­ur­day night, sur­round­ed by blan­kets and hot water bot­tles, we want to know: where can one get the best mulled wine in Welling­ton, how much will we have to pay for it, and approx­i­mate­ly what alco­holic per­cent­age will it be? 

Do our work for us in the com­ments sec­tion. Thanks!

The Welling­ton Town Hall is rat­ed amongst the top ten in the world for acoustics ^{[cita­tion need­ed]}, and this was a sig­nif­i­cant argu­ment in the 1970s and 80s when the demo­li­tion of the Town Hall became a pos­si­bil­i­ty.  The organ in the town hall is 104 or so years old and is reknowned world­wide for being one of the few Edwar­dian organs in the world that has sur­vived to the present day with­out alter­ation.

Once again Welling­ton City Coun­cil is run­ning a free Organ Con­cert Series on Sun­day after­noons fea­tur­ing our City Organ­ist, Dou­glas Mews, and oth­er guests. After a spell in Europe check­ing out a myr­i­ad of baroque instru­ments and play­ing the occa­sion­al organ recital, Dou­glas says he’ll be full of inspi­ra­tion and enthu­si­asm for his con­certs on Sun­day 9 August and 6 Sep­tem­ber.

[the details after the jump]

Drypnz will be famil­iar to many Welling­to­ni­ans with his dis­tinct street style grac­ing the streets, alley­ways and gallery walls around town.  From the paid mur­al work and  oth­er com­mis­sions, to paste ups and throw ups around town which are a gift to the city, Drypnz is a pro­lif­ic, hard work­ing artist who deserves plen­ty of recog­ni­tion (and to get paid).  The Welling­ton­ista were lucky enough to have a sneak peak at the new show open­ing at Manky Chops tonight, and got­ta say, we are not dis­ap­point­ed.  Those lus­cious juju lips with their geisha girl pouts were there in abun­dance of course but there is a range of work, dif­fer­ent sizes and medi­ums and there will be prints and T‑shirts avail­able tonight as well.

Head on down from 7:00pm until about 9:30pm tonight, the crew at Manky Chops are always friend­ly and put on a good par­ty.

Take your wal­let, I sus­pect the small­er works are going to sell fast.

As Welling­to­ni­ans, we love dub, right? ^{[cita­tion need­ed]} Some­times to a fault, even? ^{[cita­tion need­ed]} Any­one else remem­ber that famous review a few years back in Pave­ment mag­a­zine of some local out­fit that read:

More eff­ing trum­pet-dub from Welling­ton

Any­way if its to your taste, there’s some seri­ous dub trick­ery com­ing down in the next cou­ple of weeks…

[the details after the jump]

So today is the offi­cial start of Matari­ki, for some time now there has been a push for Matari­ki to become a pub­lic hol­i­day, Min­is­ter of Maori Affairs Dr Pita Sharples last week announced the Maori Par­ty had draft­ed a bill to make Matari­ki a pub­lic hol­i­day.  See what the Prime Min­is­ter thinks of the idea here.

Some accounts have Matari­ki as a moth­er and her 6 daugh­ters assist­ing Te R? as he turns around and heads south.  I like this sto­ry bet­ter than the Greek ver­sion of Pleiades which has the sev­en daugh­ters of Pleione and Atlas turned into stars to ‘save them from Ori­on’s dis­hon­ourable inten­tions’.  Where are the kick-arse god­dess­es of leg­end when you need them?  In Japan­ese leg­end the sun god­dess Amat­era­su was lured out of her cave by a good old bit of bur­lesque danc­ing and silli­ness per­formed by the volup­tuous god­dess of mer­ri­ment Ama-no-Uzume.  That is cer­tain­ly one way of coax­ing the sun out of a funk.

There are a range of things around Welling­ton planned help get the Matari­ki cel­e­bra­tions rolling:

Some of us at the Welling­ton­ista are rather fond of the old Snap­per card. We worked through its teething trou­bles and are now hap­pi­ly tag­ging on and off as we bus about the city.

So when Miki Szik­szai, CEO of Snap­per, asked us if we’d like to vis­it Snap­per HQ and learn a bit about what’s new in the world of the mag­i­cal talk­ing fish box, we (well, Alan and I) jumped at the chance.

After the jump — what we found at Snap­per.