Summer Fixture On Wellington Waterfront, The Performance Arcade Returns For 13th Year

Pōneke's favourite free live arts festival is setting up once again on the idyllic Wellington Waterfront. Now entering its thirteenth consecutive year, the award-winning Performance Arcade is getting ready to present a tightly curated, week-long programme from 22nd to 26th February 2023. Acts and events spanning multiple disciplines, including performance and live music, will delight art enthusiasts and passers-by alike.

A floating theatre, live art karaoke, and a performance scattered across 15 LED screens. 2023’s programme will be housed in its familiar village of shipping containers, but will occupy a new site at Whairepo Lagoon and Odlin’s Plaza, with some events branching further afield and venturing into the surrounding landscape, a barge, an overbridge, and into Wellington City itself.

The Performance Arcade Artistic Director, Sam Trubridge, says, “This sense of displacement is not new to these spaces, as many sit beyond the original coastline of Te Whanganui-a-Tara, and float ‘at sea’ in the waves of the historical harbour.”

The Performance Arcade is thrilled to announce three highlights of the 2023 programme to whet the appetite of art lovers before the full programme is announced in the new year.

Bird of Passage. Multimedia artist, Charles Koroneho (Nga Puhi), will develop a new work as Guest Artist for The Performance Arcade 2023. Taking up residence in Odlins Plaza, Charles will use a hybrid of technology, live performance and streaming on 15 LED screens around the waterfront to explore the ideas of passage and travel.

NEGATIVE LIBERTY / POSITIVE LIBERTY. A performance installation by the american vicarious. Inspired by the proliferation and export of USA 'freedom' politics around the world, a single viewer is offered an experience. In less than ten minutes, it is delivered to them through a combination of live performance and karaoke. All of this is done in the name of exercising one’s Liberty… but whose?

The Floating Theatre. A miniature theatre floating serenely in the middle of Whairepo Lagoon, housing a programme of live music and theatrical performance and lighting up like a lantern as it floats on the water. Stephen Bain, director of Winning Production provides a glowing centrepiece for The Performance Arcade each evening.

Attracting 60,000-90,000 visitors every year, The Performance Arcade is an innovative festival for adventurous encounters between artists and the public. Nestled into the unique landscape of Pōneke, the 2023 programme has been curated around the kaupapa/theme hīkoi te whenua, journeys in our city engaging with numerous sites around Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Fifteen installations and experiences from across Aotearoa and the World invite you to look deeper and longer at this whenua, and to travel into its past and future dreams.

Trubridge continues, “In all these pieces the audience is invited to travel, explore, and engage more deeply with this space: to discover stories we didn’t know before, and to tread paths untrodden.”

The Performance Arcade invites everyone to hīkoi down to the Wellington Waterfront, 22 - 26 February 2023, to experience interactive art and live music, all completely free. Keep your eyes peeled for the full programme announcement in the new year.

Trustpower presents
The Performance Arcade 2023

FREE ENTRY | PUBLIC LIVE ART & MUSIC
22 - 26 February 2023 / open 10am-11pm

Opening Night: 5-10pm, 22 February - all welcome.

Whairepo Lagoon and Wellington Waterfront, Te Whanganui-a-Tara

theperformancearcade.com / @theperformancearcade / #PA2023

© Scoop Media