fringy goodness.

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Recommended listening for this post: Niko Ne Zna

 Prior to the move I remember often asking Seth if he thought New Zealand would have a big arts community.  I need not have worried, Wellington has an amazing bunch of artists and is especially kind to it's buskers.

Wellington is home to the NZ Fringe Festival, which is almost like a month long Art All Night for performance art.  Any show can be a Fringe show, it can be at a gallery, a theatre, or even a local park. Some shows have an admission free, others are free/koha (koha means "donation").   You just have to send the details of your event in to Fringe and they will add it to their program and promote it.

I am ashamed to say that Fringe ended just last night and we did not get to take in any of the shows.  The first show I wanted to attend got rescheduled on account of rain and I was unable to make it on the rescheduled date.  The other, an bunch of interactive performance pieces held in shipping containers, we briefly visited whilst waiting for another event to begin, but we weren't really able to enjoy.

Shipping containers! Shipping containers as far as the
eye can see!

To make up for missing the last bit of Fringe, on Sunday we walked to a new-to-us neighborhood, one that has been described as both a place "you have to visit" and "absolute shit".  Ah yes, we were going to Newtown.  The walk took about 58 minutes, but it wasn't bad at all.  Seth and I are still adverse to riding buses after years of dealing with the Pittsburgh Port Authority.  The reason for our pilgrimage to Newtown was their annual festival, boasting 70,000 people and 14 stages.



The festival was jam packed with people, but true to Kiwi fashion, the festival site was actually quite quiet.  The first performance we took in made me realize how difficult it must be to be a busker in a country where people rarely raise their voices to express excitement, though I will say the crowd did get a bit more lively as the day went on.

Wellington Sea Shanty
Society
There are no renaissance festivals here, but I need not worry about getting my faire fix.  The shops were filled with many items I have admired at faire and the stages are filled with artists just as unique as those you would find on a ren faire stage.  I even found a replacement hat for the one that I lost in Hell (LAX for those of you who missed that post.)

I don't know why everyone is always hating on Newtown.  Yes, it's not as perfect as a place like Miramar or Kilbirnie and from what I understand it has actually been undergoing a resurgence in recent years after becoming somewhat of a slum, but that's where neighborhoods get their style, their flavor, from the strife that they've had to endure.  Miramar is a nice place to live, but there are no artists here, there are no buskers on the street, and there is certainly no graffiti.  Newtown has all of that and yet it feels safe.  It also has a McDonalds AND a Subway, therefore it is clearly the more advanced of the two neighborhoods. 

 Now I keep mentioning buskers and it's easy to, because they are absolutely everywhere! (Except in Miramar) When we first arrived I instantly thought that busking was celebrated here, it was difficult to walk five feet without walking past one.   I was correct, Wellington has very strict rules concerning street performance and busking, but they are strict to help protect and support the buskers themselves.  In order to perform you must hold a Street Performance License, which is absolutely free.  You just need to apply.   There are four, high traffic, locations within the city in which you must get permission to busk, but other than that anything goes.  You also must not encroach upon another buskers space and you may only perform in one place for up to 90 minutes, this 90 minutes does not include set up in tear down time, you are allowed an extra hour for that.





Some buskers are very flashy, with fancy outfits and microphones, but most are simply one person and their instrument.  So far my favorite buskers in Wellington have been a puppet that paints and a woman with a beautiful singing voice and great taste in dresses.  







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This has nothing to do with busking or Newtown, but this weekend we also visited a Doctor Who exhibit and took an Introduction to Sword Fighting workshop.  Here are some photos from that.





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