Special Events at the 2011 Auckland Arts Festival

Special Events

                                                       AUCKLAND ARTS FESTIVAL 2011

From Taiwan comes one of the Festival’s most remarkable productions, U Theatre’s Sound of the Ocean; a beautiful and mesmerising combination of percussion, martial arts movement, and Buddhist-inspired chanting.  Sound of the Ocean is a phenomenal production, a masterpiece of music and theatre inspired by water’s cyclical journey from a tiny drop to the crashing waves of the mighty sea.  U Theatre’s performers drum with virtuoso technique, weaving in other percussion instruments, and use choreographed movement that reflects their training in martial arts and meditation.

Sure to be one of the Festival’s hottest tickets, Smoke & Mirrors is the new show from Sydney Festival and the producers of 2007 and 2009 sell-out sensation La Clique.  A hit of the international festival circuit, Smoke & Mirrors stars Helpmann award-winner, iOTA, who created the show with director Craig Illot (after working with Ilott in the acclaimed stage show Hedwig and the Angry Inch), and will be performed in the Pacific Crystal Palace Spiegeltent.   Winner of three prestigious 2010 Helpmann awards, including Best New Australian Work, Smoke & Mirrors invites its audience to become immersed in a world of fantasy and illusion.    

Film buffs are well catered for in the 2011 Festival with two major cinematic events: Jack DeJohnette’s Jack Johnson: Soundtrack to a Legend, and Live Live Cinema: Carnival of Souls from local talents Leon Radojkovic and Oliver Driver.  Both take cult cinema and bring it to life with live accompaniment.  In 1971 William Clayton made a documentary about Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion of the world; he asked Miles Davis to compose the score.  That album, A Tribute to Jack Johnson, is considered one of Davis’ best.  Playing on those recordings was jazz drummer, Jack DeJohnette.  Now 30 years later DeJohnette, together with a band that includes include Byron Wallen, Jason Yarde, Dave Fiuczynski and Jerome Harris, revisits the score in a live performance that accompanies the rarely-seen Academy Award-nominated documentary; a stunning fusion of blistering jazz and cinema.

Leon Radojkovic and Oliver Driver take the concept of live cinema one step further with Live Live Cinema: Carnival of Souls.   The spectacular production blends live music, live performance, sound design and cinema to reinvent Herk Harvey’s 1962 film, a cult classic that has inspired auteurs from David Lynch to George Romero.  For the Festival an entirely new soundtrack, composed by Radojkovic, is performed live by members of Dr Colossus, while the dialogue is re-voiced – live – by actors Chelsie Preston Crayford, Cameron Rhodes, Charlie McDermott and Bronwyn Bradley.  All sound effects are produced in full audience view by a fast-working Foley artist.  Oliver Driver directs this multi-dimensional Festival extravaganza, which will be performed in two classic theatres – the Mercury and The Civic.

Two significant works from India and Vietnam, The Manganiyar Seduction and the Vietnamese Water Puppets, bring the energy and colour of traditional music and performance to Auckland, with a 21st century twist.  Described as a theatrical spectacle and a joyous, musical feast, The Manganiyar Seduction is the brainchild of innovative Indian director Roysten Abel.  His staging of this remarkable concert of more than 40 traditional Rajasthani musicians was inspired both by Amsterdam’s red light district and the Hawa Mahal or ‘Palace of the Winds’ in Jaipur.  The result, a dazzling concert of world music in a visually seductive setting, has thrilled audiences around the globe, from the Lincoln Centre to the Barbican and Sydney Festival.

Vietnamese water puppetry has been performed in the paddy fields of the Red River Delta for more than a thousand years, using closely guarded techniques handed down through generations. The Thang Long Troupe brings this enchanting art form of to the Garden Theatre, built around a miniature lake and stage in the Festival Garden (Aotea Square). The water conceals the puppeteers’ rod and string mechanisms, providing exciting effects like waves and splashes, while the puppeteers themselves stand waist-deep in water, hidden behind a curtain, letting their engaging characters be the stars of the show.  Musical accompaniment from an authentic live band adds to this magical and exhilarating experience for adults and children alike.