What is a ‘good’ Chinese woman?  How does a woman live an authentic life in a patriarchal, capitalist and colonial society?

愛，媽媽 (Love, Mum), is Cynthia Hiu Ying Lam’s debut autobiographical one-woman show, exploring the lives and relationships between herself, her mother and two grandmothers Ah Mah and Por Por. 

A matrilineal memoir that interweaves storytelling, multimedia, Chinese martial arts and song, we follow Cynthia’s journey as she navigates mental health, relationships, self-discovery and finding one’s vocation against a legacy of ancestral trauma and cultural conditioning.

“A heartfelt and deeply moving, impressionistic play” –– Stuart Hoar, playwright.

“I cried and laughed! Telling your story in such a beautiful and brave way is inspiring” – audience member.

“Your closing lines ‘how we are the sum of all women’ just hit me hard. I actually started crying….Any woman over the age of twenty who has pondered their mother, grandmothers or maternal figures…your play would resonate with every woman regardless of cultural background” – audience member.

A sneek peek in the link below…

https://youtu.be/bx3mchdJ3Hs

Sept 17 performance will be live-streamed with a 48 hour replay window:

vidzing.tv/love-mum

Things aren’t always what they seem on the surface. Put your ear to the ground, can you tune in and hear the stones speak? What stories do they tell?

Unearthing Frequencies – Stone Stories takes you on a participatory headphonic walk through Stonefields, an ongoing housing development in a former quarry beside Maungarei.

On the surface, a 21st century community is evolving, following a master plan for an “urban village”. But just four decades ago this was the largest aggregate quarry in Aotearoa. What was here before that? And what lived and lithic stories have been lost to productivity and progress? Join us as we see how far back can we go into the history of this site, through the entanglement of human time and geological time. 

This ambulatory, site-based work has been formed around the bones of a cyberfeminist reworking of the myth Echo created in the early isolation of COVID-19 as an exchange between the UK and Aotearoa. This work responds to the lands we inhabit and the stories that reverberate from these sites, our ancestral bones. Standing in the old Mt Wellington Quarry we draw the connection between the stone buried deep in the substrata and our online technologies as they connect us across space and site. 

This walk will be experienced via supplied headphones and involves an hour of gentle walking with some stairs and uneven terrain.

There will be a wheel accessible performance and fully masked event on Saturday 17 September at 2pm.

We will follow the public health guidelines for Covid-19

Returning home from her husband’s funeral, with his Will and Testament in hand, Anne Hathaway is overtaken by nostalgia and begins to reflect on her life with and without the world’s greatest Playwright and Poet, the man she fell pregnant to when she was 26 and he was only 18.

Anne’s love for “Bill” and her dedication to their 3 children leaves her shocked and confused by the contents of his Will......

Very little is known about Anne Hathaway and “Shakespeare’s Will” sits somewhere between fact and fiction. Canadian playwright Vern Thiessen confesses to having played fast and loose with the will and its meaning, using it “as a springboard for my own imagination and artistic goal – to explore the journey of a woman who faces adversity, rises above it and ultimately rekindles life in herself.”

“Sampson delivers a riveting performance” NZ Herald

“A remarkable creative imagining” NZ TheatreScenes

“Artfully staged Sampson holds the audience in her sway” Prague Post

“An absorbing and timely tale that is well worth contemplating” TheatreView

★★★★ TimeOut Magazine Hong Kong

Exploring human connection and emotional vulnerability, Access brings a subversive lens to the performance of masculinity.

Premiering at the Auckland Fringe Festival, Access is a new interactive performance artwork by Hamish Annan. Audiences are asked to choose the emotional dynamic they want to experience. They are brought into direct contact with authentic emotions: it’s alive, visceral, playful, confronting, and no two experiences are the same. Hamish invites the audience to explore their response to emotional expression in a new context.

Note: This is a durational work that will run for two hours. You are welcome to come and go at any time. You can participate or simply observe the performance.

Made in collaboration with Katie Burson (Paradise Island, Room on The Broom) and Rob Byrne (Paradise Island, Mister Melancholy) and with support from Auckland Council and Creative New Zealand 

Hine Downtown is a walking performance designed for urban and shopping centres of Aotearoa, with an opening season situated in Ōtepoti Dunedin. Now it is coming to Tāmaki Makaurau for the Auckland Fringe Festival. It offers a personal journey through the stories we hold, have held, and could hold within a body, in relation to an experience of being a woman and a mother. It is inspired and informed by Hineahuone (the first woman within Te Ao Māori), along with other Atua who relate to our physical and social selves. These stories and characters sit and walk alongside the everyday environments, objects and activities of the city, emerging with movement and soundscape as offerings of difference, potential or creative interpretation. Rachel Ruckstuhl-Mann has collaborated with Salvador Brown to create an audio soundscape mixing Tāoka Puoro, spoken text, site recordings and environmental sounds that transport us into the world of Hine Downtown."

Tirau’s coveted yearly Jamboree is approaching fast! But the sheep haven’t been sheared, the decorations are mouldy and the public toilets are flooded... again. Jo, fierce committee leader (and botherer) has called an emergency meeting, but father and local handyman, Steve, is confused (as usual), and reject (aka tortured soul), Johann, would rather write poems about death. Determined, confused, and somewhat absurd, this trio have their work cut out. Will their differences drive them apart and jeopardise the jamboree, or will they pull their act together? Join the meeting and find out!

An award winning queer comedy solo written by Emma Barrett, and directed by award winning comedian Sameena Zehra.

'The Moon and the Tides - a circus listening event' is a music and circus art performance. As you listen to Carawei Gao's album "The Moon and the Tides" sung live, The Dust Palace support the experience with a study in stillness and balance. 

The album follows Carawei's journey, her story of coming out and experiencing the darkest parts of life. Ranging from explosive beats to calm, soothing melodies, The Moon and the Tides is an experimental yet powerful album that will break your heart and mend it together again.

Rochelle Mangan, Jay Clement, Mary Piggin and Eve Gordon amongst other profound circus artists provide a visual exploration of poise and subtlety. This is art circus at its best.

We are showcasing freedom through art expression and what better way to express our strengths, pain and message as Māori and Pacific Islanders than to sing, dance and perform. Offering the audience an insight on how our bodies can hold but also express our emotions.