Shows on this week

At BATS Theatre: Start­ing this week is an encore sea­son of Onstage Dat­ing by per­form­ance artist Bron Bat­ten. Watch as she goes on first dates on stage. (These are actu­al first dates with a stranger, not with a per­form­ing audi­ence plant.) Wit­ness the vul­ner­ab­il­ity, thrills and heart­break of the dat­ing exper­i­ence up close, as Bron […]

Preview: I am Tasha Fierce

From the mind of Wel­ling­ton based artist Rose Kirkup, the recip­i­ent of the 2016 Fringe Fest­ivals’ NZ Pacific Artist Res­id­ency award, comes I Am Tasha Fierce. We’re intro­duced to Kirkup’s alter ego Tasha: your typ­ic­al Kiwi chick.  Her time at poly­tech, as well as fol­low­ing the teach­ings of Bey­on­cé, has helped her get out of […]

Preview: Dido and Aeneas: Recomposed

Dido and Aeneas: Recom­posed is a fringe fest style opera brought to BATS by Unstuck­O­p­era.  Dir­ec­ted by long time Wel­ling­ton cre­at­ive Frances Moore and re-com­­posed by one of NZ’s lead­ing young com­posers, Alex Taylor, their re-work of Henry Purcell’s clas­sic includes samples from Strav­in­sky, Jazz Greats, and even Bey­on­cé and is per­formed by sing­ers in over-the-top gowns, crazy make-up […]

Review: The First Time – on at BATS theatre

I often look at awk­ward, self-con­­s­cious teens and want to tell them that life is going to be OK. Those years of exper­i­en­cing things for the first time can strike you down with a pleth­ora of feel­ings from ecstasy to misery. ‘The First Time’ explores all of those feel­ings as five tal­en­ted women take to […]

Review: Dank Comedy: The National Average

Dank Presents is a series of exper­i­ment­al com­edy shows cre­ated by Wel­ling­ton comedi­ans and pro­du­cers. Hos­ted by Fringe Bar this Fringe, every show is dif­fer­ent. I saw The Nation­al Aver­age, based on an award win­ning routine in BATS Theatre’s Late Night Knife Fight. Jonny Potts and Matt Pow­ell are broth­ers Cosmo and Carl, left a whisky/whiskey […]

More Fringe Festival: The Institute of Refuge in Art

Black Cof­fee in New­town is host­ing the Insti­tute of Refuge in Art exhib­i­tion. Each piece has been cre­ated using dis­carded art­works. All recre­ated art­work will be up for sale over the week with 50% of the pro­ceeds going towards Vin­nies Wel­ling­ton social ser­vices. Have a chat with Car­mel from Black Cof­fee if you’re inter­ested in any […]

Preview: Māoriland Film Festival 15–19 March 2017

The Māor­i­land Film Fest­iv­al 2017 pro­gramme includes multi-award win­ning fea­tures, doc­u­ment­ar­ies and short films. Of the award win­ning fea­ture films, there are eight New Zea­l­and premi­eres. “Indi­gen­ous film­makers are very keen to screen at Māor­i­land as they con­sider it to be the most import­ant fest­iv­al in the South­ern hemi­sphere,” said Māor­i­land Char­it­able Trust chair Tainui […]

On now: Pūtahi Festival

Tawata Pro­duc­tions in asso­ci­ation with Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity of Wel­ling­ton and Wel­ling­ton City Coun­cil proudly presents Pūtahi Fest­iv­al, 2017. The Fest­iv­al is a present­a­tion of works in devel­op­ment (and is a darn good time). Everything is show­ing at Stu­dio 77, 77 Fairlie Ter­race, Kel­burn, Wel­ling­ton. Most shows are koha but it pays to book a tick­et so […]

Review: Faovale Imperium

This is an exper­i­ment­al spoken word/poetry event. James Nokise explores Cap­tain James Cook’s voy­age through the Pacific. It’s presen­ted from sev­er­al dif­fer­ent points of view – Cook, his wife, an out­side nar­rat­or. Some of the pieces are funny. Some are more reflect­ive. Some, I think, are sup­posed to be funny, but we don’t laugh. There’s […]

Review of Paying for it and Easy living

Pay­ing for it: an insider’s guide to the NZ sex industry The Pros­ti­tu­tion Reform Act was passed in 2003 but appar­ently sex work is still a con­tro­ver­sial job choice. As one of the speak­ers says “It seems like nev­er is a good time to talk about sex work. “ So it’s really neat that sev­er­al […]