What a month it’s been. From 2-20 March, Auckland has felt like the big little city it claims to be as we’ve gone to the central city of an evening to partake in the Auckland Arts Festival 2011 and see a few of its many shows…
What a month it’s been. From 2-20 March, Auckland has felt like the big little city it claims to be as we’ve driven the gorgeous sweep of Tamaki Drive, view of Rangitoto past the glistening Waitemata, to park easily in the central city of an evening to partake in the Auckland Arts Festival 2011.
Wandering into the renovated Aotea Square to watch the fantastic Smoke and Mirrors at the Spiegeltent or to have a post-show wine at the Stoneleigh Garden Bar, we kept saying to each other: “this feels like Melbourne, or Paris, or London.” Maybe not quite, but on a balmy late summer evening, glass of excellent New Zealand Pinot Gris in one hand and the programme for Paper Sky: A Love Story in the other, I think I can be forgiven for thinking so.
Actually, we saw Paper Sky on opening night at the Glen Eden Playhouse – it moved into the iconic Mercury Theatre later in the Festival – but the feeling was the same: a commissioned piece of theatre, from the talented Red Leap Theatre Company, responsible for the acclaimed The Arrival, which fused physicality and whimsicality into a delightful, thought-provoking love story that continually challenged the audience to engage and enjoy. Paper Sky is sure to have an ongoing life on the festival circuit, with its careful blend of contemporary and traditional dramaturgy enchanting audiences of all ages. A great introduction to live theatre for a high school class, for example.
Festivals are mixed bags – a lolly mixture if you like – but the 2011 Auckland Festival offered more pineapple lumps than black jellybeans. An outstanding crowd-pleaser, and evidence that in festivals, it’s always a good idea to try something unknown, was The Manganiyar Seduction, a compelling diorama of musicality, in which traditional Rajasthani musicians, arrayed in glorious costumes and placed within a gorgeous set, delighted festival-goers night after night with their skill, talent and pure pleasure in sharing the vast history of a musical style unknown or unfamiliar to many in the audience. The colour and vivacity of the performance seemed to light up the city.
The music selection at the 2011 Festival was superlative – we loved Ihimaera, and Paul Kelly’s A-Z, and were absolutely blown away by Martha Wainwright’s virtuoso performance of a mélange of her own music, that of her equally talented family, and her tribute to Paris’s little sparrow, Edith Piaf. A long-time Piaf fan, I was incredibly moved to see many others in the crowd brought to tears by Wainwright’s sheer talent and passion.
Wainwright’s concert set the bar high for our next engagement – the utterly fantastic White Night which saw us drag three kids aged 13, 8 and 6 all over the city to partake in Art. Parnell Road, location of many dealer galleries, had several installations we visited and contributed to before heading off to the city to the Voyager Maritime Museum for an evening cruise on a sailing ship. Looking back at our big little city from under the Harbour Bridge, lights reflected in the water, again Auckland seemed like a jewel, a place where things happen.
This sense was reinforced the following day when the bigger kids and Dad made replica Vietnamese Water Puppets as part of the Festival’s Family Day, while Miss 6 and I attended the NZSO Family Concert. The pulse of the city was throbbing, palpable, as parents and grandparents from all over Tamaki Makaurau introduced their children to new music, new theatre, new art.
The 2011 Auckland Festival really placed itself into the local events map this time – the innovation of the White Night contributed to regional, local and community engagement with the notion of an Arts Festival, and the conglomeration of key events in the centre city, in the midst of the warmest late summer/early autumn many of us can remember, meant that the buzz about the festival remained audible throughout its course.
I’ll miss the Spiegeltent and the outdoor bar, the banners and posters around town. Roll on 2013!
By Kate Hannah, 23 March 2011.
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