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 […]