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 […]