From little to large in 20 years
reflective of the 20th year, but, as Wilson explains, ‘‘time can be anything’’.
‘‘They can pick a time in the future, a time in the past, clocks, steam punk, anything. They are loving the dark side of that.’’
To balance that one out, the Yellow category has been chosen, which Wilson describes simply as ‘‘happy’’. ‘‘Youthful and giving a positive message to youth. We have had some gorgeous costumes coming in for this one.’’
Then bringing it back to the dark there’s Tim Burton – costumes inspired by the noir, gothic and quirky film director, with a glow-in-the-dark element added in. Wilson says it was the first category to fill up and it did so fast.
‘‘The students have loved coming in and testing out their costumes under the UV light.’’
The other category is No 8 Wire, which Wilson says is so fitting with the 20th-year milestone and the ethos of where wearable art all began. ‘‘Kiwi ingenuity and making something out of nothing. Things you’d find in the garage or shed, thinking out of the box.’’
It’s a theme throughout this year’s show, the Fred Dagg side of Kiwi culture, and it is also a nod to the helpers that used to appear on stage back in the Civic Centre days. Somewhere along the way the helpers got nicknamed the Trevs – they muck in and help out, and keep the hustle and bustle manageable.
So this year the high school drama troupe pop up on stage as Trevs, complete with check shirts, gumboots and a Footrot Flats attitude. ‘Trev’, drama student Aaron Whale, sums up the character.
‘‘I have been watching the New Zealand farm shows like Footrot Flats and some of the Topp Twins and I’ve taken some attributes, actions and the words they say and put them into a character that I can improvise on the night. We add in a bit extra for the audience. Our job is to make the costumes the focus but we add in some fairy dust.’’
Art teacher Dennis Pierce has some magic up his sleeve, too, and has enlisted the school’s Robotics Club to add some sparkle in the form of an interactive, bells-andwhistles tree. Pierce says they bring in as many students to help in their area of interest as they can.
‘‘That’s the whole purpose of Evento and always has been. From lighting, to filming and design, there are student workers on everything and they go through it and get a taste of what it is really like.’’
And then, of course, there are the students who enter with their fantastical wearable art. Street calls them the ‘‘Evento family’’. For students like Rene Williamson, entering Evento is a huge undertaking and a fun but attimes ‘‘hair-pulling’’ journey. Rene’s portfolio, her workings towards her Yellow entry, is bursting at the seams. She had a million ideas which she says ‘‘exploded on to paper’’.
‘‘The saying ‘when life gives you lemons make lemonade’ is what I went with in the end. I wanted to get the skirt to come up to the top, but had massive problems – everything kept falling off and breaking. Our friend is a builder and I talked to him about
how I could get the skirt up and he was like ‘hmmm’ and then I asked my uncle and he was like ‘this is going to cost so much money’, so yeah, I got rid of that idea.’’
But Rene got there in the end, and her lemon certainly has some fizz. She says the process was just a much a part of it as the final result. And that’s kind of the way Evento goes. It started out as an idea but then it grew into a beautiful monster. It got added to and bits fell off, but the super glue of the people who believed in it kept it together. It’s been 20 years of ingenuity, beauty and a whole heap of sticking things back on. On Sunday the stadium will get turned back into nothing, but the seed for the next show will be growing from that robotic tree into something even bigger.