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: My Best Dead Friend

This is a sto­ry from a sum­mer in Dunedin in 1998 when the pos­si­bil­i­ties were end­less for Anya and her best friends. They have jobs at a cafe. They have their own space to share. The Back­street Boys are at their peak. Enriched with exquis­ite details about Dunedin and inter­cut with asides about the state […]

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 […]

Review: Aunty

AUNTY is billed as a fam­i­ly BBQ, and it cer­tain­ly deliv­ers. Half the open­ing night crowd was clear­ly back again after the first sea­son, which adds to the ‘new part­ner at fam­i­ly Christ­mas’ vibe for first timers. Who hasn’t met a bois­ter­ous rela­tion and silent­ly won­dered, ‘can I laugh? Am I going to be next?’ […]

Review: Body Double

Female desire, that most elu­sive of quar­ries. We should be chaste, but not prud­ish. Expe­ri­enced, but not too slut­ty. Up for any­thing. Well, not that. Or that. Maybe just don’t talk about it? It’s enough to make a girl want to take a vow of celiba­cy and retire to a cave with a half-dozen res­cued cats. […]

Review: Zest Food Tours

An eat­ing tour of Welling­ton? That’s basi­cal­ly every week­end in my life, but it hadn’t occurred to me to try a struc­tured one. Enter Zest Food Tours, who run eat­ing extrav­a­gan­zas mas­querad­ing as walk­ing tours. Get your cul­ture and his­to­ry while also stuff­ing your face? Yes please. We took a con­densed sam­pler ver­sion of the […]