Is Auckland now the city of arts? Dionne Christian investigates in a five part series that starts today by looking at arts & the economy.

The lineup for next year's Auckland Arts Festival keeps growing with the announcement last night of more shows joining the March 2-20 programme.

The Auckland Arts Festival has announced the musical line-up for its much-loved Spiegeltent venue next March, and it's a colourful list of local and international artists.

Four more festivals have announced their line-up tonight, presenting a wide array of international and local acts who will be entertaining us during summer 2016.

The Auckland Arts Festival is still six months away but it's already announced a key figure among its contemporary music programme.

German conductor Eckehard Stier guided the APO and two choirs through the expressive textures of Michael Tippett's A Child of Our Time.

A tormented shriek, a sudden drop into darkness and a tall figure in robes emerges from the shadows, ranting.

In a nutshell, as the Festival brochure put it, Ata Reira promised an evening of award-winning choirs, majestic voices and Te Reo Maori in song.

This simple, measured, gentle charmer can be found inside a soft white cube inside the black box studio of Q Loft.

As Adesola Osakalumi speaks, the native of The Bronx, New York, slips between his own accent and that of Nigerian activist and musical legend Fela Kuti.

Entertaining a discerning audience of 2- to 4-year-olds is a never-ending challenge for British theatre artist Andy Manley.

With two cooks, 12 drummers and no words The Kitchen is more than just a play - it's a metaphor for life.

Te Uru is an attractive venue for music, especially in the more informal space of the gallery's workshop, with the ambience of Titirangi greenery outside the windows.

Two cooks, high drama and hypnotic rhythms - yet this illustrated drumming show from South India is emphatically not some relaxed mix of My Kitchen Rules and Stomp!.

Notable Kiwis share their favourite and ‘brave’ picks — shows that will challenge their perceptions — from the Auckland Arts Festival.

Chicago-based hip-hop crew the Q Brothers bring plenty of verve to their remix of Shakespeare's cross-cultural tragedy Othello.

Remix a modern take on classic play about jealousy and racism.

The It company from New York City boasts 14 of the best dancers that the money of its founder and funder Wal-Mart heiress, Nancy Laurie, can buy and what those 14 fabulously honed and interestingly diverse beings can do is certainly superb.

Since this is the first time New York dance company Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet has come to New Zealand, members can be forgiven for not being sunsmart.

Forget bleak Scottish moors, foreboding castles and cackling crones; Brett Bailey’s Macbeth, one of the Auckland Arts Festival’s topline imports, immerses us in the volatile brutalities of African politics.

An Auckland Arts Festival show doesn't just blow things up, blow things over, and blow people's minds, it proves that science isn't just for boys.

Congolese refugees, gun-toting warlords, multinational double-dealing and glittering Chinese imports are not things one would immediately associate with the opera.

Mirrored towers make up the art installation Field, by Angus Muir and Alexandra Heaney, on display in Wynyard Quarter this month as part of the Auckland Arts Festival.

Activism through art specialist Lemi Ponifasio and Mau take Colin McCahon's iconic painting as a huge and architectural backdrop to their spellbinding tribute to the fallen of World War I - and take....

House of Dreams was an ambitious time trip courtesy of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, transporting us through the homes of 17th and 18th-century music and art-lovers.

If you know anyone who thinks the arts festival isn't for blokes take them to see BLAM! - a 75-minute blast of testosterone-driven mayhem with amped-up, gaming style SFX and a heavy-metal soundtrack.

For the next two weeks, across Auckland, more than 100 world class shows - local and international - will astound and entertain.