Backstage | Auckland Arts Festival
By Renee Liang
It continues to be a strange week – on one hand I feel unable to stop looking at the terrible information about the earthquake streaming through from every source, on the other I remain excited about the feast of creativity that is carrying on regardless around the country. Those two things are not mutually exclusive – if you’re an artist putting on a show (or thinking about it) for the earthquake appeal, please do share. It’s at times like these that our virtual community needs to become a real one.
For now, I’ll wear my excited artist’s hat, for the Auckland Arts Festival is coming. The Auckland Fringe has already started – and I’m hearing stories of standing ovations and sold out shows, so keep ‘em coming folks. I have more ‘backstage’ stories and interviews from the Fringe below, so keep reading.
The Festival ‘proper’ starts this coming Wednesday – and this year it aims to celebrate “the infinity of ideas within the artistic mind”. As festival director David Malacari says in his programme introduction, “the Festival provides a context for us to explore new ideas and new worlds; to take pleasure in new discoveries, empathise with the stories of joy and heartbreak, and come away with our universe expanded to include the new galaxies of thought we have encountered.” My stomach turned when I read that – for that is why I go to see things, and why I make work, especially in a world which is cruel and uplifting in turn. I need to make sense of it all, and I need to communicate with others. It’s encouraging that many artists I have interviewed also feel that a sense of connection with their audience is of utmost importance.
Notable in the lineup this year are the number of commissioned New Zealand works. Paper Sky, Rapt, Havoc in the Garden, New Zeibekiko and Ihimaera are just a few of the major new pieces to represent our stories, in a range of art forms. There are a number of great things about these commissions, from my point of view: firstly, many of them involve senior practitioners working with newer artists; secondly, there’s plans for most of these works to tour, in some cases as part of the Festival itself. The inclusion of ‘satellite venues’ such as the Glen Eden Playhouse and Mangere Arts Centre is wonderful as these places often access a different audience demographic, and sometimes the artists in the shows have a personal connection to the area also.
The Festival wouldn’t be the Festival unless there were a number of grand showpieces, normally impossible to see without spending a lot of money on an air ticket. The Manganiyar Seduction is one such – over 40 Rajasthani musicians playing in a concert promised to be visually and aurally spectacular. I don’t quite understand why they are presented in a set referencing the Amsterdam red light district, but perhaps that will all become clear.
Two years ago the theatrical focus was on Asia, this year there is a small but intriguing collection of work from South America – among them La Odisea, a retelling of Homer’s Odyssey by a Bolivian theatre company who recasts Odysseus as a Latino immigrant returning home. On the visual arts side, Mexican-Brazilian artist Hector Zamora is producing a site-specific installation somewhere in the city. And who isn’t looking forward to seeing Titeres Porno, a Columbian troupe which uses anatomically correct puppets, some medically enhanced (!), to tell lurid late night tales of…sex, of course.
Asia, of course, is well represented, especially in music – and I can’t wait for the Vietnamese Water Puppets to take over Aotea Square. But it’s the European artists which dominate the programme – as well as the beautifully curated Francedanse program delivering a concentrated shot of French contemporary dance, we’re joined by Swiss dance/physical theatre/mime/defies description performers Martin Zimmerman and Dimitri de Perrot, in Gaff Aff – I encourage you to check out their website. And, of course, let’s not forget the Australians and the North Americans, who also make many appearances.
Now, anyone who’s eagerly picked up a copy of the program will also know that these shows do cost quite a bit, even the concessions. (Wouldn’t it be nice if artists taking part in the Fringe could get standby rates?) But luckily there are a number of free events – most of the visual arts program, for example, a family day on Sunday 13th March, and the city’s first ever White Night on Saturday 12th March – when lots of venues stay up late so we can arty-party and yes, there’s a free bus. There’s also a solid program of Arts and Minds with artist talks in the delicious Speigeltent (unfortunately for workers, in the middle of the day) and workshops.
- Right. I’ve talked enough, time for a few interviews.
This week I talked to Katrina Chandra about the Pacific Fringe, the small, bouncy and very colourful program lighting up the brand new Mangere Arts Centre – Nga Tohu o Uenuku. Katrina’s done admirably coordinating a program for this fledgling arts community (and convincing the rest of us we need an audience in South Auckland). Proof of that is the wealth of local performers rocking at this first, but probably not last, Pacific Fringe.
I also talked to the naughty pair Callum Stembridge and Leda Petit, well known in this city for their diversionary shows under the banner of Please Say Yes. They join forces with The Dust Palace (Eve Gordon et al) to produce a pleasurably scary fairytale, Deep in the Forest.
For some musical exploration, check out Yvette Audain’s Grooves Unspoken, performed at St Lukes church in Remuera. Yvette, a composer-musician with both classical and band credentials, performs her own music – with some talented friends. I talked to Yvette last week.
Of the Festival shows opening next week, Ihimaera probably has one of the more complex run sheets – twenty bands on and off stage in 90 minutes. I talked to Charlotte Yates about the complexities and rewards of producing shows marrying music and literature.
I also talked to director Roger Hodgman about Xerxes, the Handel opera being performed as a co production between NBR NZ Opera and Victorian Opera, with music by German baroque group Lautten Compagney.
I’m really looking forward to the world premiere of Havoc in the Garden, a new work by Massive Theatre Company. It’s been a decade since British playwright Lennie James collaborated with the company for the acclaimed Sons of Charlie Paora. This, their second large work together, is going to be full-on. I went to a rehearsal last week and felt worn out just watching them. I also interviewed James Wilson, producer of Massive, for my Cultural Storytellers column. I believe the way in which James views his role as producer, creative collaborator and company ‘grower’ is a good model for the rest of us.
Finally, two Fringe shows I find intriguing: Gloria, and These Four Walls. I haven’t got interviews for these but I do have insider knowledge that I’m happy to spill. Gloria is based on the story of Amy and Catherine Waller’s grandmother (who’s still alive), a feisty individual who fell in love during WWII but then chose family in NZ over her husband in America, causing a scandal. Her life story is lovingly re experienced by Amy as a solo performer – expect domestic objects, puppetry and more than a touch of magic. I saw some of this show in its early stages at Red Leap Incubator and really hope to make it along.
These Four Walls is performed at the grand old Lopdell House in Titirangi. Tahi Mapp-Boren, Genevieve McClean, Chris O’Connor and Nigel Gavin are known as generous performers and love collaborating with audiences. They draw their material from the venue, referencing 1930s history when Lopdell House was used as a hotel and as a school for the deaf – check out the blog to see how painstakingly research has been done over the past year. The walls will come to life…. and should the audience experience any ghosts, they will be invited to contribute their memories at the Booth of Echoes and Remembrances.
To end, I’d like to quote Zimmerman and Perrot of Gaff Aff. For anyone who’s ever wanted to know how to make theatre:
Our World
We build our pieces from little things, everyday things, things that happen when a person feels unobserved – we hunt them out and gather them together. And that’s where we go to discover characters, spaces, sounds – a small gasp, a moment of distractedness, a constriction of the heart.
For our pieces we use everything that comes our way, and let it work its way through the meat grinder.
We call it theatre because we haven’t found a better word.
We like distortion, we turn everything upside down.
We seek the possible in the impossible.
We risk and we fail.
We like little things.
For us, objects are living beings.
We are little wannabe greats who are suddenly in over our heads.
We fool around at the edge of the abyss.
We laugh our heads off and are deadly serious.
We ride roughshod over physical pain.
We are extremely diligent and quite painstaking.
We let it rip.
Sweat and tears, good luck and bad.
Zimmermann & de Perrot – Zurich 2010
