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.