The Great Downhill is about a boy who leaves his single mother to see the sea, riding downhill on his bike and encountering rag-tag characters.

If one of the roles of an arts festival is to present genre-blurring work, then the Auckland festival is doing its job with a show that opens this week.

A good part of the excitement at Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's latest dance project was experiencing our city's favourite orchestra in the faux-Egyptian temple of The Civic.

Overall, I enjoyed the production but, on reflection, would probably only give the performance six out of 10, writes Peter Bromhead.

Among the razzle-dazzle of the big shows, the Auckland Arts Festival always throws up some hidden gems like Waves.

Funny, sexy and feminist all at the same time, Australian cabaret star Meow Meow (Melissa Madden Gray) delivers wonderful frivolity.

The PM's daughter is known for Big Mac bras and provocative art but she says she's quite shy in real life.

Emily King music is described as existing "where the cafe meets the dancefloor" - understated pop and soul.

The National Theatre of Scotland offers both history lessons and captivating drama in its trilogy of plays about the country's early kings being staged at the Auckland Arts Festival.

New Zealand's brightest acting and dancing talents have been pirouetting and singing their way around the stage in Auckland today.

If you stand on the edge of Danica Pond and start digging a tunnel straight through to the other side of the globe, you'll be in Spain.

A post-postmodern diva is about to take over the Auckland Arts Festival's Spiegeltent with her take on a Hans Christian Andersen folk tale.

The focus is on people's casual attitudes and everyday interactions, and Burch re-enacts several of her own experiences with angry humour and audience help.

Two Shortland Street starts will don wigs, make-up and bespangled evening wear to join Dragon's Diva Den as special guest female impersonators.

The five featured women dance, create pretty moving tableaux and briefly sing songs. From the Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Fiji, Samoa, and Aotearoa, they're great, well-rehearsed performers.

Old-world charm, juggling and a virtuoso display of clowning makes this big top performance a must-see.

The centrepiece of new artistic director Francesco Ventriglia's first mixed bill programme for the RNZB is said to have changed ballet forever.

More than 10,000 tickets have been sold to the opening night of one of the hottest events on the Auckland Arts Festival calendar.

New Zealand Post, struggling with falling mail volumes, has put its art collection up for sale.

Auckland Arts Festival is a celebration, a time to come together each year as a community to share in the spirit and creativity of artists, and to celebrate our place in the world.

It's a dog-eat-dog world in this uncompromising reworking of John Gay's 1728 The Beggar's Opera.

Clearly, those who enjoy what Auckland has to offer in the arts - and 91 per cent of Aucklanders say they attend at least one event a year - are spoiled for choice.

You couldn't get further away from an artist's studio or concert auditorium than the Laboratory for Animate Technologies at the University of Auckland's Bioengineering Institute.

My grandfather's book of Sundowner columns in selected form is kind of my Bible. I still have dreams he is alive, if missing a few marbles, writes Alan Duff.