Press Release – Auckland Arts Festival
Auckland Arts Festival/Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki (AAF) welcomes the government decision this morning that Tāmaki Makaurau would return to Covid Alert Level 1 at midday today (Friday 12 March).
It has been a rollercoaster of a fortnight, following the announcement that Auckland would enter a Covid Alert Level 3 lockdown at 6am on Sunday 28 February for seven days.
Due to open on Thursday 4 March, the first section of AAF 2021 was put on pause and the Festival team have worked around the clock to reschedule the majority of works planned for 4-12 March. A full and regularly updated list of show status updates is available here.
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Auckland Arts Festival champions ambitious ideas
The 2021 Auckland Arts Festival reaches Mahurangi this year with three shows at the Warkworth Town Hall.
Artistic director Shona McCullagh says the festival comprises a programme designed to unify, uplift and inspire through a “world-class all-Aotearoa curated collection of events that celebrate the timely theme of Aroha (love)”.
“Our festival vision champions change-making, the environment, ambitious ideas, powerful voices and inspirational experiences that open our eyes, our hearts and our minds,” she says.
Ms McCullagh says the festival, which runs from March 4 to 21, will include world premieres of several new works and revive some that had to be cancelled in 2020. It will involve more than 1000 artists at more than 70 events.
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Cementing an historic link
The commemorative trowel, which has spent most of its life in a drawer, will now by on permanent display in the town hall. Pictured on the day it was handed over are Don Wilson and his wife Helen.
A Warkworth artefact has returned to the town after an absence of nearly 100 years.
The commemorative trowel has been in the Wilson family since Nathaniel Wilson used it to lay the Coronation Stone at the Warkworth Town Hall on June 22, 1911.
Last month, his great grandson, Don Wilson, 93, of Auckland, handed it over to hall manager Alex Hayward. “It’s quite amazing to see it returned,” Alex says.