\nThe biggest surprise<\/p>\n
For three weeks, the Auckland Arts Festival has brought a bevy of local and international artworks to T\u0101maki Makaurau. Sam Brooks looks back on his highlights.<\/p>\n
My favourite show<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not always a good sign when a show breaks the containment of the fairly insular arts scene \u2013 it can happen to the wrong show, or the right show for the wrong reasons. However, The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave is absolutely the right show to break containment. Everyone I\u2019ve talked to about it, regardless of background or arts scene knowhow, has raved about it. This dance show, which premiered at Basement Theatre in 2024, had a triumphant hometown return at Q\u2019s Rangatira space, turning it into a club for an hour of endurance theatre. It remains the best blend of high art and accessible art that I\u2019ve seen, and if it ever comes back to T\u0101maki, see it. You won\u2019t regret it.<\/p>\n
My biggest letdown \u2013 that still has me thinking<\/p>\n
Sincere Apologies has put me in a strange place for a few days now. The concept of the show feels robust at first \u2013 every audience member reads out an apology, some real, some big, some small, some imagined \u2013 but there are too many holes in the show that left me frustrated. Some of the \u201cbig\u201d apologies in the show, which has been adapted for Auckland and I presume is adapted for every location it tours to, are genuine unresolved traumas. The apology from the government regarding the Royal Commission Inquiry into the Abuse in State Care felt especially tone-deaf, not just because of the apology, but the context. These are sprinkled among more jokey apologies and fictional apologies (including some speculative future apologies), and gives the idea that the makers \u2013 who are Australian based \u2013 haven\u2019t quite considered how they might land with a local crowd. I\u2019m still thinking about it almost a week later, albeit mostly in consternation, so perhaps the makers achieved what they wanted.<\/p>\n
Sincere Apologies (Photo: Supplied)
\nThe biggest surprise<\/p>\n
Aotea Square has felt like the most underutilised aspect of the Auckland Arts Festival for a few years now. I\u2019m old enough to remember the days when the square, turned into the festival garden for a few weeks, was pumping every night for almost a month, when artists and audiences from both the Arts Festival and the Auckland Fringe Festival would mingle, dance and drink until the early hours in the morning. For whatever reason, that vibe has never been recaptured.<\/p>\n
Until now. This year, Aotea Square felt absolutely pumping. Whether it was due to a consistent programme of free live music, a deeply appealing sculpture called Evanescent by Atelier Sisu adjacent, or just a sudden late surge of summer, the festival garden was alive with everything you want from a festival. Artists, audiences, and vibes aplenty. It felt like a hub, and one that will be sorely missed for the 11 months the festival isn\u2019t on.<\/p>\n
Bronwyn Turei in Wet (Photo: Supplied)
\nThe show I wish I saw<\/p>\n
I saw a lot of shows in the festival (my schedule says 12, but my soul says 112), but the one I missed that I wish I saw was Wet, out at Henderson\u2019s Te Pou Theatre. I heard great things about this comedy \u2013 about a woman whose secret life as a romance novelist suddenly becomes less secret, and more chaotic for her family \u2013 and I hope it has a second life somewhere.<\/p>\n
The show you should keep an eye out for<\/p>\n
He K\u0101kano was the playreading series this year, showcasing new work by M\u0101ori playwrights. Alex Medland\u2019s Becoming Jeff Bezos has a killer premise \u2013 in a semi-post-apocalyptic New Zealand, a woman hunts down the last person on Earth who is not signed up to UberEats \u2013 and is one of the best plays I\u2019ve heard read in eons. The scale is potentially too small for a mainstage, but an enterprising young director needs to snap this script up immediately. Two (admittedly) great actors reading it from behind music stands left me more moved than shows with comparatively eyewatering budgets.<\/p>\n
Waiora (Photo: Supplied)
\nThe moments that stuck with me<\/p>\n
Getting to see the last 20 minutes of Waiora, 20 of the best minutes in New Zealand theatre, in the flesh. The final, devastating, moments of NZ Opera\u2019s Bluebeard\u2019s Castle, showing a woman alone in her marriage and her mind. The curtain drop in Circa\u2019s Duck Pond. Just about every moment in Ten Thousand Hours, showcasing the art in athleticism. The quiet opening of The Visitors, an Indigenous woman looking out at colonisers she wants to believe the best of.<\/p>\n
And, to be slightly sentimental, the moments when I saw Auckland showing up to these shows. We\u2019re so often fed the idea that people aren\u2019t going out anymore, but the vibe I got from the past few weeks is that if you put on shows people want to see, people show up. Wild concept, I know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For three weeks, the Auckland Arts Festival has brought a bevy of local and international artworks to T\u0101maki…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343826,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[166080,3681,492,156,111,139,69,1066],"class_list":["post-343825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-auckland-arts-festival","tag-cnz-review","tag-comments-enabled","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-pop-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343825\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}