Get Fringe'd in Wellington!
12 February - 5 March, Wellington
The Fringe Festival has established itself as a Wellington ‘must’. In fact, National Geographic (2014) listed the Fringe Festival as one of the 10 international ‘Must Do in February Festivals’.
In the years since 1990, when Fringe first found itself on the Wellington calendar, the festival has proven, and not yet failed, to be an outrageous delight.
This year the festival boasts almost 150 shows and a multitude of art forms, from audio, busking, cabaret, clowning, comedy, circus, dance, film, fashion, improvisation, music, online, physical theatre, podcast, poetry, puppetry, spoken word / storytelling, theatre, visual & digital art.
“Fringe is a vital and enthralling part of Wellington’s artistic landscape, simultaneously a right of passage for artists and audience,” says Festival Director, Hannah Clarke. Festival goers can be swept away by the talented artists in an eclectic range of sites including BATS Theatre, Waitangi Park, Whitireia, the Southern Cross and Te Whaea.
Fringe has been through many guises and has spread through the Wellington’s crevices, up it’s trees, in and out of all its venues, down to the south coast and as far up as Kapiti and Upper Hutt – 2016 sees over 40 places and spaces around Wellington ‘fringed’!
Dance features heavily in the festival programme this year. From Swaroopa Unni performing Sringaram-Dance of Love, a Bharatanatyam piece exploring a journey of intense love, to Maria Dabrowska’s Who Are We Now? Performed by Footnote New Zealand Dance, in their first show for 2016. Hip-hop, contemporary, interactive, multi-cultural and physical theatre all play an exciting part in Fringe.
For three weeks the capital city will be alive with cutting-edge art and audiences can thank the Kiwi performers who travelled to Scotland’s Edinburgh Fringe 26 years ago and declared “we need some of that too!”
Other dance you can look forward too:
Castles (House of Sand), 12-13 February
East Meets West (Chinese New Year Festival), 13 February
To Infinity and Beyond (Infinite Dance Crew), 15-17 February
Know Yourself (How About Now), 15-17 February
D (Jessica Brownell - USA), 17-20 February
Crows Feet Hit the Pavement (Crow's Feet Collective), 19 February-5 March
Knitting While Sleeping (House of Sand), 24-27 February
For the full programme visit fringe.co.nz