Auckland Fringe Brings Tamaki Makarau to Life This Summer

With artists and performances from Spain, Australia, England, United States, UK and Aotearoa – Auckland Fringe is back with its first sampling of offerings of what’s to come, with the full programme coming in January 2020.

Theatres around the city are taking a Fringey-approach to their involvement in the 2020 Festival, offering full programmes in their various spaces. For Fringe Town, Auckland Live is reimagining the iconic Auckland Town Hall with te reo thrash metal sensations Alien Weaponry headlining the venue’s line-up. The New Zealand Dance Company (Shona McCullagh) and The Conch (Nina Nawalowalo and Tom McCrory), with choreography by Ross McCormack, have teamed up for some ‘artivism’ with This Fragile Planet – a work exploring the strength of intergenerational democracy and the power of regeneration across the natural world. It makes its debut at the Great Hall, in front of intimate audiences of just one-hundred people per performance. The full Fringe Town programme is announced on Monday 13 January.

Basement Theatre have offered artists a provocation for works in their Studio space, challenging them to create works outside of the conventional theatre duration. Five durational works will be presented, each lasting four hours to tackle the concept of time itself: including Just One More, co-created by actor Arlo Gibson, and Ross McCormack again as choreographer; An Open Apology created by George Fenn and Nathan Joe where three performers will juggle their apologies, saying sorry over and over; and Cleaning the Room by award-winning Olivia Mahood and Poppy Serano, where one woman attempts to clean the entire space before she can do her art. Basement have also programmed their mainspace with fringey delights, including a new show from the comedy legends behind the Auckland Fringe hits Salem Bitch Trials and MacKenzie’s Daughters return with Lust Island, the sizzling improvised parody of the international cult hit Love Island. Another comedy hit, Tom Clarke will return with his show Perry after a sell-out season at the NZ International Comedy Festival 2019. And Gemishka Chetty and Aiwa Pooamorn return to Fringe to present Have You Ever Been With An Asian Woman?, a satirical investigation into porn fetishes, unleashing a bold commentary on the hypersexualisation of pan-Asian women in pop culture.

TAPAC are celebrating Auckland Fringe with an extended season of music, dance, and theatre. Award winning singer-songwriter Robin Kelly, French/US singer and instrumentalist Sonia Wilson, and guitarist Nigel Gavin take audiences on a unique experience in In the Footsteps of the Forgotten – A Musical Odyssey with their deeply personal journey through the generations. Babel Theatre explore the roots and history of migration around the world including Aotearoa in The Wall, inspired by the story of the migrant caravan at the borders of Mexico. Direct from Australia, Emerald Flamenco Theatre is Spanish flamenco dance as you’ve never seen in New Zealand. Tampocalypse is a funny, raw, and intimate yet bold story that chronicles the journey of young women trying to better their world, one period at a time, and The Incredible and Glorious World According to the Fitzroys created by Charlotte Nightingale aims to flip perceptions of disability, following a single mother and her son Liam, a boy with Autism and ADHD, and partly performed in NZ Sign Language.

Q Theatre brings cabaret, comedy, dance, poetry, theatre, and everything in between to Auckland Fringe with a stellar line-up of events as part of Summer at Q. With calamitous help from some of Shakespeare’s most brilliant yet erratic characters, Michael Hurst spirals into madness in No Holds Bard. Also taking on Shakespeare, The Works of William Shakespeare by Chicks is Kath and Kim meets Shakespeare in this hilarious romp featuring an all-female ensemble cast. Proudly Asian Theatre and Sicko Productions team up for Deep, an offbeat, underwater adventure, uncovering the dangers of social isolation and the splendours of self-belief, brought to life with luminous puppets. Game Face is a riotous gig theatre show about the absurdity of beauty myths by a trio of international theatre-makers, while theatre lecturer James Wenley performs his post-dramatic solo show Dr Drama Makes a Show about knowing the theory, but not knowing what to do with it.

There’s even more offerings from venues and artists still to come with the full Auckland Fringe line-up, with the likes of local comedy heroes Donna Brookbanks and David Correos delivering their freshest material in David Correos & Donna Brookbanks Do it Again at The Classic, or After, one part movement and language workshop, one part performance experiment at the Auckland Old Folks Association.

The full Auckland Fringe programme is set to go live in January, with all forms of weird and wonderful art and performance for audiences and artists to get amongst. Registrations are still open until 20^th December.

www.aucklandfringe.co.nz