Arts return to the city
At last something for Auckland to celebrate this summer, with the return of the arts festival, writes Edna Heled.
The much anticipated Auckland Arts Festival (AAF) will bring some relief to the ‘‘lost summer’’ in Aotearoa. From stimulating theatre shows, colourful dance, circus acts, and music concerts to family entertainment, including some spectacular free events, the festival promises to cater for every taste.
AAF will take place in different venues around the city, and will see the famous Spiegeltent coming back to the Aotea Centre, Ta¯maki Makaurau.
Revisor is one of the highlights of this year’s festival. Superstar choreographer Crystal Pite brings this modern dancetheatre that mixes action, comedy and pantomime, featuring eight Kidd Pivot dancers. Inspired from Nikolai Gogol’s political farce, Revisor centres around abuse of power, greed and corruption, unfortunately very topical to our times. March 9-11, Aotea Centre.
Tusiata Avia’s The Savage Coloniser, Produced by Victor Rodger for FCC, is the premiere stage adaptation of her acclaimed snappy, bold and outrageous poetry collection examining race and racism, which made her the first female
Pasifika poet to win Ockham Poetry Award. At Rangatira, Q theatre from March 9 to 12.
SandSong: Stories from the Great Sandy Desert from First Nations company Bangarra Dance Theatre is a powerful, deeply moving dance story creating a new narrative for Indigenous futures. March 15 –18 at the ASB Waterfront Theatre.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Sydney Theatre Company is an international cine-theatre event that was described as reinvention theatre. It shows one actor playing 26 different characters in a cascade of theatrical transformations. This is a modern take on Oscar Wilde’s old story about making a deal with the devil. March 18-25, Aotea Centre.
In association with Live Nation, for one night only, spoken word sensation Rupi
Kaur brings a powerful poetry experience telling about personal loss, love, growth, mental health, friendship, and other universal theme including poems from her iconic books ‘Milk and Honey’ and ‘the Sun and her Flowers’, March 19, Auckland Town Hall.
Detailed information is available about AAF at aaf.co.nz.
The beginning of March sees the Auckland Art Fair with NZ galleries presenting side by side with a selection of galleries from Asia and Australia, such as ONE AND J. (Korea); or N. Smith, NASHA, NAP Contemporary, Savage Garden and LAILA (Australia), with more than 100 artists.
The fair takes place in The Cloud, Auckland Waterfront, between March 2 and 5, and will have a few special events, pop-up bars, and artist talks.