Festival bests under canvas

By JOSIE MCNAUGHT

After my final Wellington Arts Festival show, I spied artistic director Carla van Zon sheltering from the rain, wrapped up in one of her trademark pashminas and smoking a cigarette. She looked intense and anxious as she scanned our faces, but she says it wasn't nerves about the outcome (read money made) of the festival.

She was there to see if, nearly a year after she had first seen a show - in this case Diana Quick in After Mrs Rochester - she could trust her own judgment.

"I do, and then I don't," she says over the phone later. "I do the rounds beforehand and wish everyone well, and then I'm in the audience, and afterwards I want to get the reaction."

The numbers have not been crunched yet by the festival bean-counters, so talking about the financial outcome isn't possible. It will be weeks before we know whether this festival passed the all important break-even line.

In my experience, there were good audiences for a number of performances I attended, but always empty seats and - apart from no-show Lyle Lovett - the sold-out signs were not in evidence. Van Zon thinks this festival overall had the best range on offer for some time, designed to appeal to the widest audiences.

For me, 12 Angry Men, Gilberto Gil, Roger Hall's Spreading Out, Ballet Nacional de Espana, the Junebug Symphony and After Mrs Rochester were all worth fleeing the suburbs for (and the not insignificant outlay on a babysitter).

I couldn't say the same about Cookin'. This was a fringe cringe show with cheesy, heavy-handed humour and drumming gags that went on and on as the show struggled to fill its 90-minute slot.

The opera, The Elixir of Love, had the dubious honour of being upstaged by the design of sponsor Telecom's opening night bash.

Elixir sounded fine, looked awful, but probably had more mass appeal than something more avant garde. Staunch opera lovers will be looking for a more challenging offering in 2006.

The visual arts programme looked like an add-on, filling a mere five pages of the programme. After rising to the occasion with the spectacular Henry Moore sculptures in 2002, Te Papa filled its touring exhibition space with dinosaurs.

Festival time is supposed to be about bringing out your best and brightest, which did happen at City Gallery with Rosalie Gascoigne, Contemporary Chinese Art at the Adam Gallery, Fruits at the Dowse, and two exceptional dealer shows: He Rere Kee Taking Flight, a virtual sellout of contemporary Maori art at Tinakori Gallery, and Art From Berlin at Bartley Nees Gallery.

The free shows and discounted tickets for students were popular and went some way to bringing the festival on to the streets, but where were the acts of years gone by, the four guys in Farmers' window, the Wedge at the old Circa building, or the living statues that used to appear at lunchtime to startle Wellington's office workers?

How about the fantastic fireworks display that used to kick things off? If you couldn't afford the hefty ticket prices to shows, at least you felt part of things through these events.

Van Zon says money to spend in this area is limited, and this year it went on the flag installation on the waterfront "which everyone could enjoy and be part of". This temporary piece by British artist Angus Watt was one of the quiet successes.

Mounted on the grassy knoll near the city to sea bridge, the burned sienna, ochre and pinky red flags lapped up the wind belting down the harbour.

One of the best-patronised events was the Heineken Festival Tent on the waterfront where we were entertained by some of the best music, humour and performance. The shows were short and sharp and with ample lubrication from the handy bar, a visit always turned into a good night out.

Wouldn't it be nice if they forgot to take it away? It could become a venue for late-night jazz and, given its proximity to the Beehive and the Green Parrot, home to some brilliant satirical improv comedy.

What was missing from the tent was the tantalising prospect of seeing one of the festival greats perform after their main gig was over. The best celebrity tale I heard was a friend of a friend taking author Richard Ford kayaking off Seatoun Beach.

Even if he hung around the barbie afterwards, it doesn't have the same ring as Abdullah Ibrahim whacking out a few tunes to a stunned late-night crowd.

Alas no, the international festival circuit is busy these days, and Ibrahim had to catch the 5am red-eye to Australia the morning after his show. Van Zon says having a performer do an extra gig somewhere like the tent is not the sort of thing they can plan. If it happens, it happens.

Overall, this festival was solid. There weren't big names lauding it over the little guys and hogging all the publicity, but individually there were some brilliant moments audiences will hopefully remember when their credit-card statements come in next month.