Disaster is a theatre game about game-theatre. Here’s a link to its eventfinda page. It is part of an international show exchange/long distance relationship between contemporary performance group Binge Culture and game theatre collective machina Ex. Accompanying the run at The Hannah Playhouse the companies hosted a panel at Goethe-Institut New Zealand. I was invited to write a feature on the phenomenon and I was giddy to accept because I’m nosey and would love to know if this German nerd (machina Ex) can make long-distance work with the wide-eyed and excitable New Zealand greenie (Binge Culture). The panel was hosted by Hannah Smith and Ralph McCubbin-Howell from Trick of the Light, but has this trick been right (I’m sorry) between these two companies, now that they are halfway through their correspondence?
0 Comments
Austin HarrisonDear PM Luxon,
You’ve recently expressed that arts and music in schools could be “deferred” in favour of maths, and in response to letters asking you to reconsider that position- your office’s default response has been “if spending more time on numeracy and literacy means less time on the nice-to-haves, like music and arts, so be it.”. I’ve just completed, what will be, one of the last Creatives in Schools programs funded by the Ministry of Education. Here’s a summary of what we did and the outcomes of the project. I believe what we were able to do in just one term, had a marked and lasting impact on the education of the young people involved. I urge you to read it, consider it and think about the added value of arts in our education system. Sean Burnett Dugdale-MartinI want to begin incorporating opt-in star ratings to our reviews. A rating out of five stars is an internationally recognised mark of success and prestige but our productions that look to tour internationally market themselves with quotes and awards… not stars. The fear from local productions is that this comes across more as a deliberate omission rather than a cultural absence. It gives the impression that the show has bad ratings and wants to hide its stars when in reality no one in our country seems to be giving them out.
The kaupapa of stars is about as damaging as the kaupapa of awarding the best theatre show. The issue is in quantifying the qualitative. I am drawn to this idea though and it requires a sturdy kaupapa in order for me to rest easy on its incorporation. Sean Burnett Dugdale-MartinIt occurred to me some time in 2021 that something about making a new show every year for Fringe, and a new company to go with each one, wasn't quite right. It didn’t feel like the most responsible use of time and effort to just leave a project behind with no larger plan for it within a few months. Surely the art you put your blood, sweat and tears into making can have a life longer than one season? Surely not everyone in Wellington would have seen the show and there are more audiences to share the work with, more tickets to be sold? If the art I was a part of creating was as good as I thought it was, and had the audience reaction it did, wouldn’t it make sense to keep going?
Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin |
Art MurmursAt Art Murmurs, we aim to provide a safe and open space to discuss the arts in the Wellington Community. Archives
October 2024
Categories
All
|