No Socks Required

Septem­ber is the month for dance lov­ers – wheth­er obser­va­tion­al or more involved – with the Dance Your Socks Off fest­iv­al run­ning all month.

The fest­iv­al is a cel­eb­ra­tion of con­tem­por­ary dance and dance theatre, and to kick it off there are two inter­act­ive events organ­ised by DANZ. The lead-in is on August 26th from 5:30 – 7pm with a (free) for­um at the Film Archive, fea­tur­ing per­formers and pro­du­cers of fest­iv­al shows talk­ing about their work and shar­ing ideas with inter­ested observ­ers and people with­in the industry alike. It looks like the per­fect intro­duc­tion to the fest­iv­al if you’re unsure where to start after look­ing at the pro­gram here. Then on Septem­ber 6th there’s a con­tem­por­ary dance work­shop at Toi Poneke (aka the Wel­ling­ton Arts Centre at 61 Abel Smith Street), only $5 on the door, with tutor Anita Hutchins. Aimed at begin­ners aged 15 and up, the promo says you should wear non restrict­ive cloth­ing with bare feet or soft dance shoes, and take your lunch! Call (04) 802 0536 for more info about either of these events, or check the Feel­ing Great web­site for the extens­ive line-up of Dance Your Socks Off events and work­shops.

All the news that’s fit to drink

There have been a few recent (re)openings on the hospo scene recently, and a few more are either immin­ent or rumoured. A quick round-up of drinkie and food­ie news, includ­ing drunk­en pigs, an Itali­an inva­sion and a touch of cin­na­mon, after the jump.

Crafting at Pataka

Tomor­row why not pop out to the very lovely PATAKA in Pori­rua for the Day.

Because as well as their very lovely Japan­ese garden you can have a bit of a shop and a browse at all sort of Crafty goods.

Why? Well it just so hap­pens that from 10am till 2pm Craft­ing is being held.

Think fun, funky, unique and you’ve got an idea of the range of crafty things for sale at CRAFTING.

There will be jew­ellery, crochet, dolls, stuffed toys, cush­ion, clothes, badges, bags Rus­si­an dolls, and all sorts great things for sale from a bunch of crafty types from around the wel­ling­ton region.

You can find PATAKA on the corner of Nor­rie and Par­u­moana St, Pori­rua.

And heck I bet if noth­ing else you’ll find some great inspir­a­tion for enter­ing our com­pet­i­tion to win a phone from Voda­fone.

Win a new phone! Go mobile in Wellington thanks to Vodafone

As a web­site for people who are con­stantly on the go around Wel­ling­ton, we recently got con­tac­ted by Voda­fone who wanted us to know that they’re chan­ging the way their mobile inter­net works.

Voda­fone is mak­ing it even easi­er for people to con­nect to the inter­net – wherever they are – with the launch of revamped mobile data pri­cing and a smart backend that reformats webpages for easy view­ing on a mobile screen.

Now, for up to just $1 a day on the days you use it, cas­u­al users of the mobile inter­net can browse the world wide web eas­ily and inex­pens­ively… without com­mit­ting to a fixed monthly data con­tract.

The new $1 a day cas­u­al rate gives cus­tom­ers up to 10MB of data.

And how do we know this is actu­ally true? Because we’ve got a new Nokia 6121. And even more excit­ingly, we’ve got one to give away, so you can have a chance to find out for your­self too. Find out how after the jump.

If you like movies, quizzes and the Paramount, boy do we have a deal for you!

Are you still in with­drawl from the Film Fest­iv­al? Are you try­ing to come up with any reas­on to head back to the theatre, even if it’s just for the ice cream?

Guess what? From this Thursday onwards, the Para­mount Theatre is start­ing a weekly movie quiz “A quiz in 60 minutes” at 9pm in the Para­mount Bar.

Movie fans will be invited to take part in this unique and free quiz night to com­pete for a chance to win a fort­night’s free movies for two people and a num­ber of oth­er spot prizes.

“There are a lot of very know­ledge­able movie fans out there; we are really look­ing for­ward to offer­ing some­thing a bit dif­fer­ent. I don’t think any oth­er cinema has done this before in Wel­ling­ton” say Kate Lar­kindale, Man­ager of the Para­mount.

“After the suc­cess of the film fest­iv­al this year, we are excited about this quiz night. People will be able to see a movie at after work and then have a drink and stretch their brains for an hour”.

The quiz night will be only 60 minutes long, cov­er­ing all areas of film, and all dec­ades. Movie quotes, Oscar win­ners, theme tunes, Movie taglines, act­ors, dir­ect­ors – it’s all in there!

Check out the Para­mount web­site for more inform­a­tion.

As promised

Here’s some info about This is Exper­i­ment­al – also kick­ing off tomor­row eve.….

A fest­iv­al of exper­i­ment­al film and film makers (talk about niche‑y) If you know someone who’s into avant-garde film, please do let them know.

High­lights include a screen­ing and work­shop by Guy Sher­win, one of the pre-emin­ent Brit­ish film artists of the last 40 years; Free Rad­ic­al: The films of Len Lye, a pro­gramme which screened to over­whelmed audi­ences in the USA last year; and a col­lec­tion of 1980s Super 8 Movies from Canada, NZ and USA presen­ted by film maker Mar­tin Rumsby.

Image: Len Lye, Stills Col­lec­tion; New Zea­l­and Film Archive

Plus The Michael Nich­olson Stu­dio Visu­al Music Pro­ject Stage 3: Ops 1–4 video install­a­tion – see below.…

Video synthesizer

Open­ing this Thursday at the Film Archive at 5:30pm, an exhib­i­tion by 92-year old Wel­ling­ton paint­er, sculptor, artist Michael Nich­olson.

If that’s not impress­ive enough this work, The Michael Nich­olson Visu­al Music Pro­ject: Stage 3. Op.s 1–4, was ori­gin­ally cre­ated on a “Scan­im­ate” machine in Aus­tralia in the 1980s; the same machine that early Star Wars, Ses­ame St and The Elec­tric Com­pany anim­a­tions were made on. Nich­olson worked with the Film Archive to restore the ori­gin­al U‑matic tapes and edited them togeth­er as ‘Visu­al Music’ with the assist­ance of edit­or Diane McAl­len.

Michael Nich­olson first came to New Zea­l­and in the 1950s to work at the Elam School of Fine Art. His latest work is inspired by the abstract expres­sion­ist paint­ings of Wassily Kand­in­sky. It’s hyp­not­ic, fas­cin­at­ingly beau­ti­ful and on dis­play for the next month in the Pelor­us Trust mediagal­lery.

This event launches an Exper­i­ment­al Film Fest­iv­al too but more about that soon!

Still images: Screen grabs from The Michael Nich­olson Visu­al Music Pro­ject: Stage 3. Op.s 1–4

Have a Caeli – that’s Ball to you!

Cyst­ic Fibrosis is a cause close to the hearts of some of the Wel­ling­tonista, so we’re really happy to pro­mote the Winter Caeli (Scot­tish Ball) at the Inter­con­tin­ent­al on August 23.

This fun­drais­ing ball will be an event like noth­ing ever seen before in Wel­ling­ton – find out how things are done the Scot­tish way and help raise money in style

Tick­ets are $90, and for that you get:

• Wel­come bubbles
• Three course meal
• Wine with din­ner
• Live music
• Scot­tish dan­cing
• Fun­drais­ing auc­tion and raffle

For more inform­a­tion or to buy tick­ets, con­tact 0800 651122 or CFwinterball@gmail.com

Nothing fishy going on in this post

For those of us who like pub­lic trans­port but really could give less than a fly­ing fish about a cer­tain S word, here are some tid­bits to round out your week­end:

• Per­haps we won’t always have Par­is – a notice of “reentry” has been sighted in its win­dow.
• The ‘Ho won ‘Best Bar in New Zea­l­and’ for like, the mil­lionth time. Go them!
• In happy bus news, Go Wel­ling­ton has finally cot­toned on to the fact that many uni stu­dents live in Hataitai and Brook­lyn, so they’re doing a tri­al exten­sion of the #5 and #7 routes up to Kel­burn. This is also good news for people who work on the Ter­race but are too lazy to take a lift up to there from Lamb­ton Quay, but not that great if you’re look­ing for more inform­a­tion about it on the Met­link site.
• The Women’s Life­style Expo: appar­ently all women need to lose weight, have bad cred­it and like to eat chocol­ate. Well duh, say the Pretty Pretty Pretty girls, who hap­pen to have an awe­some Skin­food prize pack to give away that this Fly is cov­et­ing.
• An ad on Radio Act­ive prom­ises two cock­tails and some tapas for $15 on Wed­nes­days at Vin­tage Bar, but their out-of-date web­site can­’t con­firm this.
• In oth­er gos­sip, appar­ently the crowds of Bridge and Tunnel­ers who want to go to Tem­per­ance Bar are caus­ing some hassles for oth­er ven­ues on the street, with masses queuing out­side. There was men­tion that police in riot gear have been called in, but our source, while gen­er­ally very reli­able, was almost as drunk as this Fly, so take it with a grain of salt.
• Look­ing for a cent­ral city loc­a­tion for cot­taging? The Coun­cil is look­ing to redevel­op Coble­stone Park on Vivi­an Street.