Karneval for Auckland
And so we embark into
Feb
27
2005
27
2005
Feb
27
2005
27
2005
Karneval for Auckland
My thought was – the AK05/07/09 festivals are scheduled to take place in February/March every two years – that’s Karneval season in cities around the world, from Rio to New Orleans to Nice to Köln. Why not turn the bloody thing into an Auckland Karneval… incorporating aspects of the Pasifika Festival, the Chinese Lunar New Year, the Secondary Schools Maori and Pacific Islands Festival and European-style Carnival/Mardi Gras.
AK Samba- In Wellington, of all places
So many of the elements are already in place: the city has a samba school, we’ve got kapa haka, dragon dancers, Polynesian performance groups of all ethnicities, brass bands, and maybe we could attract some hippies from Coromandel to do fire poi. This would make for one mother of a parade. So much of this stuff is already “operational” and loved by Aucklanders at events such as the Grey Lynn Festival, the K Road Karnival, Pasifika and the Lantern Festival. We could run the parade as the centrepiece of the arts festival. Close the city for three days and party. It would rock. Let’s do it.
Feb
26
2005
26
2005
Gritty
A capacity Friday night crowd greeted The Hot Grits last evening at the first installment of the Auckland Festival Late Lounge at the Wintergarden. They are a really fun band, and had the punters filling the dancefloor in about 3 seconds flat. A nice set of Meters-inspired funk and several large, extended dollops of Afrobeat (what’s with the rise of Afrobeat Orchestras in NZ at the moment? The Grits here in Auckland, Scribes of Ra in Wellington. There’s an audience out there for it too…)
Some Grits at Float bar, August 2004
Since the Grits dont have any records available, its a good thing they’ve put some of their songs online.