Here, there, and everywhere
Shows at both festivals or heading further afield
Beyond Words
Performances of John Psathas’s composition Ahlan wa Sahlan will mark the fifth anniversary of the Christchurch mosque attacks. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra will debut the piece in Christchurch before concerts in Wellington and Auckland. Psathas composed the work in consultation with Moroccan vocalist Oum and Greek virtuoso Kyriakos Tapakis. They will both feature in the NZSO performances, which will be led by Jordanian-American guest conductor Fawzi Haimor.
Tim Minchin
The Australian comedian-composer-musician-singer-songwriter-actor returns for festival performances and an additional Christchurch gig with his show An Unfunny* Evening with Tim Minchin and his Piano. It promises a mix of songs from his non-comedic 2020 album Apart Together with tunes from his musicals Matilda and Groundhog Day, as well as reminiscences about that crazy mixed-up career of his.
The King’s Singers
The British early music choral group returns for festival dates as well as Christchurch performance of Songbirds, a collection of avian songs by the likes of Schubert, Janequin, Passereau and, says the publicity note, that other ancient music institution, Fleetwood Mac. So, possibly an a capella version of Albatross?
William Barton and the Brodsky Quartet
Leading didgeridoo player William Barton (Kalkadungu) joins forces with leading British chamber ensemble the Brodsky Quartet on a seven-date NZ tour for Chamber Music NZ, which takes in both festivals. Their programme will include Barton’s own music, the NZ premiere of Andrew Ford’s String Quartet No 7: Eden Ablaze, works by Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe and NZ composer Salina Fisher, as well as pieces by Janáček and Stravinsky. In Auckland, Barton will also be a part of Kōtuitui, a gathering of indigenous instrumentalists with members of the Inuit group Pamyua, as well as taonga pūoro exponent Horomona Horo.
Hatupatu Kurungaituku: A Forbidden Love
The kaupapa Māori theatre company Taki Rua debuts its latest production in Wellington and Auckland before heading to Christchurch and Rotorua. The piece is based on the love story between Te Arawa warrior Hatupatu and the bird woman Kurungaituku. The feathered creature has been having a moment in the culture of late, what with appearances in everything from the final season of Wellington Paranormal to Whiti Hereaka’s prizewinning novel Kurangaituku.
Gravity & Grace
A new production by Bruce Mason Playwriting Award winners Eleanor Bishop and Karin McCracken based on a Chris Kraus book about when she once made a movie in NZ. See main story for more.
Capital gains
Major acts at Wellington’s Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts in Wellington
Jungle Book reimagined
Renowned British-Bangladeshi contemporary choreographer Akram Khan brings his own dance company’s reinterpretation of the Rudyard Kipling story – one that figured early in his career when, as a young dancer, he was the lead in the 1980s production The Adventures of Mowgli.
“I wanted to tackle The Jungle Book from my perspective, rather than Kipling’s,” he told the Guardian.
“We can’t ignore that he was a racist and an imperialist, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that the story was something that I connected with. It had a huge impact on me when I was a child.”
Meow Meow
English cabaret musical comedian Meow Meow will bring her Pandemonium show to the Michael Fowler Centre with the backing of those masters of comedy, the NZSO (the actual one, not the Flight of the Conchords version). In a possible NZSO first, the programme comes with a warning: “This concert will feature explicit language, sexual references and may involve interaction with some lucky members of the audience.”
The National
It’s taken the ANZFA to finally get American alt-rock giants The National to Wellington after multiple appearances over the years in Auckland, though they will also be playing a non-festival show at Auckland’s Spark Arena during their February excursion.
Soweto Gospel Choir
The South African ensemble returns with its show Hope, the group’s take on American soul songs from the likes of Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and Sam Cooke.
Writers
Writers and their readers will descend upon the Embassy Theatre during the festival’s first weekend. Overseas guests will include veteran American novelist Richard Ford, Canadian author Patrick deWitt, American writer Jane Smiley, Irish novelist Anne Enright and renowned Mexican American poet, novelist and essayist Sandra Cisneros.
Queen city selection
Big attractions for Auckland Arts Festival
Bernie Dieter
Auckland’s answer to Meow Meow is this German artist who will be resident performer at the Spiegeltent in a show inspired by the Weimar cabaret era. Her show Bernie Dieter’s Club Kabarett will run for the duration of the festival. Contains “gender-bending acrobatics”, apparently.
Manifesto
Australian choreographer Stephanie Lake’s work in which nine drummers play for nine dancers in a setting that evokes the Busby Berkeley screen musicals of old.
Afrique en Cirque
An acrobatic circus performance by Yamoussa Bangoura inspired by daily life in Guinea and accompanied by the sounds of Afro-jazz.
Dragons
A collision of Korean cultural dance with street moves from pioneering choreographer Eun-Me Ahn involving the company interacting with projections of performers from different Asian countries. All to a soundtrack that blends traditional Korean music with contemporary K-pop.
Angélique Kidjo
After appearing at Womad in New Plymouth in 2019, the Afropop superstar and multiple Grammy-winner returns for a one-off show at the Auckland festival, drawing on her dozen-plus albums, including her most recent, 2021′s Mother Nature, and hopefully her brilliant 2018 re-think of Talking Heads’ 1980s classic Remain in Light.
Diptych
Award-winning Belgian hybrid theatre outfit Peeping Tom bring two suspenseful stories – The missing door and The lost room – to Diptych, a production that’s a juggling act of drama, dance, noir and horror.
Click here to learn more about the 2024 festival line-ups.
Click here for an interview with Tim Minchin.
