What's on for 2025

UK singer-performer Sarah-Louise Young will be coming to the Wānaka Festival of Colour in An Evening Without Kate Bush.

This year is shaping up to be a busy one in Otago as festivals return with international acts and top-performing New Zealand artists and home-grown talent plan shows in the region.

Rebecca Fox takes a look at what has been announced so far for the year.

Colour and variety

Circus, the world of Jane Austen and cult cabaret - Otago’s festival organisers are tempting us with glimpses of what is to come at the Dunedin Arts Festival and Festival of Colour in Wānaka this year.

Both festivals will run in late March-early April, immediately preceded by the annual Dunedin Fringe Festival which runs from March 13-23.

The arts festival, celebrating its 25th birthday, has moved again from its traditional late-year slot to March 26-April 6 to take advantage of shows touring other centres and taking part in the Auckland Arts Festival earlier in March. The Festival of Colour has also been able to benefit from this.

It has meant both festivals, which traditionally do not announce their programmes until late January, releasing news of the shows coming south - Canada’s Cirque Alfonse’s Animal described as a "surreal circus experience set to an infectious live soundtrack of agricultural funk" complete with juggling and acrobatics, and An Evening Without Kate Bush, an award-winning cabaret celebrating the artist.

The arts festival has also announced Mansfield Park, a New Zealand Opera production of a Jane Austen tale which opens the door on the hidden world of the Regency drawing room, is coming to the city and dancers Michael Parmenter and Lucy Marinkovich are performing The Night Has a Thousand Eyes as an early taster to the rest of the festival in February.

Festival director Charlie Unwin is completely hyped about these shows.

"Animal is one of those rare shows that grabs the audience right from the get-go and keeps the adrenaline pumping with its live music, daredevil stunts, and totally bonkers onstage antics – who knew that a farmyard could inspire such an incredible night of entertainment?"

Mansfield Park sold out many of its shows in the North Island last year and Hanover Hall is the perfect setting for it in Dunedin, he says.

"I’m especially pleased to be continuing the relationship with NZ Opera."

Further details of the festival will be announced at the end of this month.

The Festival of Colour begins on March 29 with its free community street-theatre day and as well as Animal and An Evening Without Kate Bush, has announced Chamber Music New Zealand is bringing Reimagining Mozart to the town.

It features a new arrangement of Mozart's Requiem by Robert Wiremu and takes inspiration from New Zealand’s connection to Antarctica and the tragedy of Air NZ Flight TE901, an exploration of flight, birdsong, nature, and landscape. It will be performed by Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir and a septet of leading musicians.

Like the arts festival, the full programme will not be released until later this month.

• The annual Dunedin Fringe Festival is also celebrating its 25th birthday, with its promised programme of local and national acts which will be released online on January 15.

• Also back this year is Queenstown’s Whakatipu Music Festival in April which presents a week-long programme of workshops and performances featuring 12 top young classical artists

They will get to participate in career development workshops to hone their professional skills and receive coaching and mentoring from festival artists such as Dr Karen Grylls (conducting), Ioana Cristina Goicea (winner of the 2017 Michael Hill International Violin Competition), Julian Smiles (cello), Bernadette Harvey (piano) and Stephen de Pledge (piano).

For early-career music and event-industry professionals, 12 paid apprenticeships are available as part of the festival’s unique Training Ground Programme where they are responsible for delivering the festival overseen by experienced industry professionals.

"The festival fosters talent and provides opportunities for a broad range of musicians and those who are interested in the arts," foundation executive director Anne Rodda says.

"It weaves together the local community alongside world-class luminaries and emerging artists and delivers an exhilarating event for every taste and ability."

• Later in the year the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival (October 17-19) will be back bringing a lineup of authors, poets and storytellers to the city

Two shows coming to Dunedin

Ballet

This year is the first season of the Royal New Zealand Ballet programmed by its new artistic director Ty King-Wall.

"It's one of the great privileges of the role and you feel a lot of responsibility. The key for me is finding that balance represented across the year."

He is bringing two shows to Dunedin this year - "The Firebird with My Brilliant Career" (May) and "The Nutcracker" (November) - although the popular Tutus on Tour shows to the regions are not coming this far south in 2025.

King-Wall says the season shows a strong commitment to new work and to homegrown talent and creations.

"This year is really about home and about identity and what that means for us as a company and the place that we live and work, and feeling like it's really representative and relevant to the community that we're a part of."

Fashion

Fashion is back with a vengeance this year with the iD Dunedin Fashion Week taking place from April 1-6.

Its famous "world’s longest catwalk" at Dunedin Railway Station will again play host to the Emerging Designer Awards and the iD Dunedin Fashion show over two nights giving a glimpse at the latest in emerging fashion as well as the best in local design.

Also bringing fashion to the fore, will be Dunedin Public Art Gallery’s Nom*d retrospective opening on March 29.

It will showcase 20 looks from NOM*d’s 39-year history, selected from the label’s extensive archives and styled by long-term collaborators Karen Inderbitzen-Waller and Delphine Avril Planqueel.

Llizzie Tollemache’s The Neurospice Girls are performing in July. Photo: supplied

Gender switch feature of summer comedy

The theatre year in Dunedin will begin with a season of Dunedin Summer Shakespeare (DSS) - The Comedy of Errors next month.

In its sixth year, DSS co-founder and producer Kim Morgan says this fanciful comedic tale of two sets of twins separated at birth offers plenty of laughs and the chance to mix things up a bit.

This season, most of the roles typically held by males (masters, servants, royals, merchants) will be played by females, while most of the roles typically assigned to females (stay-at-home spouses, sex workers) will be played by males.

It will feature both DSS regulars Sofie Welvaert, Thomas Makinson, Brent Caldwell, April McMillan-Perkins and talented new faces from other local theatres Maegan Stedman-Ashford, Clare Lewis, Elizabeth Thomson, Jackson Rosie, Sheena Townsend, Angelo Lukban, Ariel Holloway and Diane Dupres.

It will again be held at Chingford Park.

Two of New Zealand’s top actors Michael Hurst and Jennifer Ward-Lealand will return to stages in Dunedin and Wānaka on a national tour of In Other Words.

In a first for the real life couple, they will perform together in this two-person show which tells the story of Arthur and Jane, whose lifelong love is threatened by the gradual onset of Alzheimer's.

"We’re both going into this show with a huge amount of enthusiasm", Ward-Lealand said.

Jennifer Ward-Lealand and Michael Hurst will return during a national tour of In Other Words. Photo: supplied

"I’ve had some beloved family members and friends head down this road.

"It’s pretty devastating and a lot to carry for loved ones."

"We’re all in this together," Hurst said.

The tour follows the production’s highly successful Australasian premiere of the play written by UK playwright Matthew Seager and sold-out season at Q Theatre Auckland.

Locally some theatre companies and performers who will be putting on shows for the festivals are not able to announce them yet but others are in full planning stages.

Companies putting on shows outside the festival window include Dunedin theatre company Sahara BreeZe.

Its co-founder Sarah Barham’s new play All Heroes is planned for March at the New Athenaeum Theatre and a new devised piece using physical theatre is planned in May.

It is also looking to do a new interdisciplinary piece with live music, physical theatre and text in October.

All Heroes is a comedic duet piece with Barham as Jandoe Wilkins having a very bad day, interacting with multiple characters played by her husband and fellow actor Blaise, and draws on the couple’s comedic training at the Philippe Gaulier school in Paris, and postgraduate theatre studies at the University of Otago.

Blaise and Sarah Barham rehearse All Heroes. Photo: Jordan Winchman

It will also be hosting its Shotglass Shorts Playwriting Competition in September which aims to highlight the talents of local actors, directors and playwrights. Plays are 5 to 10 minutes long with audience members voting for their favourite script.

Hic Sunt Dracones (HSD) production company is planning the premiere season of performing artist and stuntwoman Lizzie Tollemache’s The NeuroSpice Girls in July.

HSD co-founder Kim Morgan says while there has been a development season of this play at Centrepoint in Palmerston North, and rehearsed readings in Wellington and Christchurch, this is slotted to be the first full production of this work anywhere in New Zealand.

They are working with Dunedin Dream Brokerage to find a central space where it can mix seats, sofas, beanbags and mats for a neurodiverse audience.

"This setting will allow us to craft a distinctive, non-traditional, and immersive environment for this timely tale - which is quickly becoming HSD’s distinctive style of theatre."

Director and actor Lara Macgregor’s Birds of a Feather is planning on building on the success of Prima Facie, and with the support of the Dunedin City Council’s Professional Theatre Fund, will be producing another show in 2025.

While Macgregor cannot yet reveal what the production will be, she says she will direct and it will feature two Dunedin comedians who will alternate performances each night.

"The play has a socio-political theme, and is touted as the funniest play you’ll see about depression.

"It will open on World Suicide Prevention Day and run for two weeks."

Musician Tiki Taane will perform in Dunedin. Photo: Lucy Hammond

Classical fare still on offer

Classical and chamber music

Even though the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra are not coming to Dunedin next year, there is still classical music on offer with the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Music New Zealand’s programmes.

Dunedin Symphony Orchestra guest conductor James Judd will lead a season ranging from Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique and Saint Saens’ Organ symphonies and Piazzolla’s quirky tango-infused Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, to new works by New Zealanders Gillian Whitehead and Nathaniel Otley.

He will also conduct a concert celebrating Matariki featuring the premiere of Gillian Whitehead’s The Journey of Mataatua Whare with Brahms’ piano concerto performed by soprano Rebecca Ryan, baritone Kawiti Waetford in his first DSO performance and US-based ex-Christchurch singer Paul Whelan, who last performed here in 2021.

Former Dunedin singer Anna Leese returns to perform with the DSO for the first time in four years alongside City Choir Dunedin and David Burchell on organ performing Poulanc’s Gloria and Saint-Saens’ Symphony No 3 Organ.

Among the guests for this year are Umberto Clerici conducting fellow Australian Konstantin Shamray on piano performing Tchaikovsky; Australian Benjamin Bayl conducting the DSO for the first time with Robert Orr on oboe performing Schubert and New Zealander Brent Stewart conducting violinist Amalia Hall playing Piazzolla; and the world premiere of emerging Dunedin composer Otley’s This Rising Tide: These former wetlands.

The DSO are also continuing their cross-over concert programming this year, finishing their season with "Simply the Best", a celebration of the greatest pop divas.

Their Dunedin Concerto Competition returns for a third year in March, offering young musicians under 23 from Otago and Southland an opportunity to showcase their talents. The event culminates with the Finalists’ Concert at the Dunedin Town Hall.

The DSO will also partner with City Choir Dunedin for a performance of Handel’s Messiah at the end of the year.

Chamber Music New Zealand is bringing four concerts to Dunedin: London-based Australian pianist Piers Lane; musician Tiki Taane and multidisciplinary artist Kerema Taepa; and New Zealand’s oldest and most avant garde chamber music ensemble, From Scratch, under the leadership of Phil Dadson.

Cromwell audiences will get to see singer Ali Harper and guitarist Harry Harrison reimagining songs by Ella Fitzgerald.

Wānaka will get to see "Silent Movies Live" in October featuring pianist David Selfe and percussionist Jeremy Fitzimons playing to two Charlie Chaplin silent films.

Dunedin’s City Choir will also perform "Darkness and Light" at Knox Church in April, featuring contemporary choral masterpieces, while its winter concert "Zimbe!" will feature the songs of Africa composed by Alexander L’Estrange.

Jazz

The Dunedin Jazz Club will start off their year in February with a concert by the Rachelle Eastwood Quartet at Moons. Eastwood is a Brisbane-based flautist, who will perform original compositions and standards with her brother, Mozart Fellow Simon Eastwood (double bass), and Dunedin’s Bill Martin (piano) and Carl Woodward (drums).