Tiny Fest A Feast of ŌTautahi talent

Wednesday 01 February 2023

Ōtautahi Tiny Performance Festival is back for 2023 and has a feast of incredible Ōtautahi talent on the line up of experimental, boundary-pushing performances.

After a successful Programme Launch Party in December, Tiny Fest is excited to present new and established works by a plethora of national and international artists. Over 60 artists across 21 back-to-back shows are performing at Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū as part of their public program, as well as at the Canterbury Workers Education Association and University of Canterbury Arts at The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora.

“An essential part of the Tiny Fest kaupapa is to nurture sustainable careers for professional performance makers”, says Artistic Director Julia Harvie, “and we are proud to present new works from 3 local artists.”

Cubbin Theatre Company are in their fifth year of playful and respectful theatre experiences for children under 5. Their vision is of a world where high quality art is as integral to early childhood as the playground, and as accessible. They have created Sportsball, an exuberant and sensitive solo performance about a child who has a big ball and even bigger dreams. This show is aimed at children aged 3-5 years old and is full of physicality, fun, and imagination with main character Tai exploring the world with his big bouncy ball.

Guitarist, composer, and improvisor Greg Malcolm has a long history of creating sound and is performing Slightly Imperfect, with local singer, extended vocalist, and actress Jenny Ward, multi-instrumentalist Rosie Langabeer, and local drummer and improvisor Joseph McCallum. Their performance plays with the concept of ‘folly’ and ‘foley’ by placing the songs and poetry of Ivor Cutler into an absurd, strange, magical, and childlike world, showing music can lie within everything.

Third generation kaihaka of Te Ahikaaroa Kapa Haka, Savanah-Kui Tukariri (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāpuhi), a multi-passionate māori creative, and Kerepeti Paraone (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Hine), a filmmaker, musician and professional haututū, have created URUAO. This new work weaves their love of haka and all things te ao māori into music, dance, and film here in Te Waipounamu, to create a story that calls all explorers. Uruao ki uta, Uruao ki tai, Uruao ki ngā rangi tū hāhā.

Teu Le Va - New Works FIKA & J.3PK is new poetry/prose and music in response to the Dawn Raid policy that affected Pacific peoples in Aotearoa/New Zealand during the 1970s. Beloved locals, FIKA Writers join J.3PK – Jeffery Kalauta, a creator of Beatz and digital visual works that explore the relationship between Pacific heritage and contemporary issues affecting Pacific people, in performing this powerful work that gives insight into the lived experience of the Dawn Raid policy for Pacific families in Ōtautahi, Canterbury.

Ōtautahi Tiny Performance Festival is a platform for the next wave of performance makers and audiences in Ōtautahi.