Festival Director Julian Cook has provided us with another sneak peek into the wide range of performances and exhibitions being mounted for next month's festival, and amongst the "heaps" of events are several which have particularly caught his eye.
"We are working with a group called Spyglass
on a series of commissioned outdoor large scale projections in
McKelvie Street off Ponsonby Road from the 14 - 16 February in the
evenings," says Cook. The project will display the work of young
glbt illustrators and animators and "a lot of the work that's up
there will be video-projected and animated and I think will be a
really cool thing that people can do for free in the evening. These
will be building-sized projections and that's a new thing and it ties
in perfectly with the visual arts hub scheduled for down that end of
Ponsonby Road.
That 'hub' will include The Kiss at Black Asterix,
Should Love Come First at Art Station, the Pulse Art exhibition at
White Space and the John Parker exhibition at Masterworks, Cook
notes. "You'll be able to walk from exhibition to exhibition
which I think is really cool, take in the Pride Festival's entire
visual arts programme in one day."
A special show by Wellington-raised and now Melbourne resident drag performer Pollyfilla has been confirmed. "Polly is coming over to do her show Kitsch in Synch, at the Musgrove Theatre from the 12 - 16 February," says Cook. "The late night show is described as "a deranged domestic drag drama... her synopsis reads: 'Welcome to a day in the life of a paranoid post-modern housewife in her quest for domestic perfection.'"
Speakeasy is at Garnett Station from 11 - 14
February, again it's a night show. "It includes Auckland
literary veterans Andrea Callen, Thomas Sainsbury, Stephanie Johnson
and Verity George all coming together with eight short tales of
confessions of vices, desperation and obsession."
There's the launch of a new lesbian novel called Who Was That Woman Anyway? - Snapshots of a Lesbian Life by Aorewa McLeod which will be held at the Women's Bookshop at 6pm Tuesday 19th. The publicity blurb describes it as: "Emerging brittle and cynical from a wildly dysfunctional family, Ngaio careers from ice cream factory to children's home to Oxford to rehab. Along the way, she discovers herself and her sexuality - at raucous parties with trainee nurses, in feminist encounter groups and Wiccan covens, in university classrooms and legendary sapphic hotspots "This is McLeod's first book and the launch will be hosted by acclaimed author Stella Duffy, "so it will be quite an impressive literary lesbian evening," Cook says.
Skate Date on Valentine's Day has been put together by Tess Tickle and the Auckland Roller Derby League. "It's a roller disco at Skateland in Mt Wellington... a night of romance on wheels," Cook laughs. "It begins at Switch bar on K Rd at 6pm and there are busses going to to Skateland that leave at 6.30 then it's back for an after-party at Switch bar at 10.30.
The full Auckland Pride Festival programme is scheduled to be released mid-January.
