What: Random Acts of Christmas.
Where: Various locations, Queen St, December 19-24.
They say it's not what you know but who _ and the cliche proved true for Sally Barnett when she took charge of a cracker of a Christmas project with less than three months to pull it together.
Barnett, producer of development programmes for Stamp at The Edge, was asked to create a street theatre festival for Christmas. Rather than opting for a traditional theme, she decided to make it innovative, urbane and give the festival a contemporary twist evocative of cosmopolitan Auckland.
The result is Random Acts of Christmas, which features local and international artists appearing on street corners and the tops of much-loved buildings like the Civic.
Barnett approached artists she'd worked with through Stamp, a performing arts programme which features theatre, music and dance by emerging artists who get to "stamp" their mark on the national arts scene starting with Auckland.
They include Kip Chapman, of the HACKMAN collective responsible for interactive space show Apollo 13. Long fascinated by volcanoes, Chapman and friends are building a "working" volcano which will erupt at various locations during the festival. "You always have ideas but they never get any traction but then something like this [Random Acts] comes along and it's like getting a gift to be able to try something," he says.
Beth Kayes, artistic co-ordinator of Co Theatre Physical, says that like Chapman she already had an idea for a show and just needed the opportunity to perform it. She joins fellow acrobats Eve Gordon and Carlene Newall for Pla la la Parade, where two clowns will journey up Queen St searching for a distressed taniwha atop the Civic Theatre, taking refuge from the mad world below.
Recently returned from street theatre festivals in Europe, Stephen Bain's work Beckett Hotel questions the nature of public space and participation by involving audiences in a performance inspired by Samuel Beckett.
"People can get involved a little bit or a lot - it's up to them to choose," says Bain.
"I'm very politically engaged with the question of what is public space and how it is frequently confused with commercial space."
Other acts include TMC, the country's reigning hip hop dancers, and the New Pacific Music Ensemble which blends jazz and music from the Pacific.
Barnett was able to use established contacts to book two other major acts: Fallen Angels from Melbourne and Wellington's Cirque du Salon.
Kayes and Chapman say that if they can give stressed Christmas shoppers even 20 seconds' break from the seasonal stresses, they will have done their job. "We just want people to have fun."
