Te Wāhi Toi/The Arts Place exists to connect the creative community of Queenstown and Wānaka with audiences, students, teachers, spaces and each other. We are a not-for-profit organisation powered by Three Lakes Cultural Trust and inspired by local arts and culture.
Talking with Aspiring Conversations
Nothing gets Wānaka talking quite like Aspiring Conversations. A four-day festival with 14 exciting events, this year’s programme has an outstanding lineup of speakers and artists. Featuring conversations and events including new hosts, speakers, artists, poets, singers, songwriters, authors, Ngāi Tahu representatives and so many more, this year’s festival will be well worth the wait.
After six years, including two cancelled…
Nothing gets Wānaka talking quite like Aspiring Conversations. A four-day festival with 14 exciting events, this year’s programme has an outstanding lineup of speakers and artists. Featuring conversations and events including new hosts, speakers, artists, poets, singers, songwriters, authors, Ngāi Tahu representatives and so many more, this year’s festival will be well worth the wait.
After six years, including two cancelled Aspiring Conversation programmes, Aspiring Conversations 2024 will take place from 4-7 April thanks to the Southern Lakes Festival Trust. Despite a short hiatus due to Covid-19, Aspiring Conversations typically runs every second year, alternating with the Wānaka Festival of Colour.
The long-anticipated festival welcomes an impressive array of sessions who are there to have the hard conversations with humour, authenticity, and even discomfort.
“Our vision is to create an extraordinary platform that inspires, entertains, and challenges, fostering community well-being,” says the team. “Through diverse performances, and interactive events, we aim to engage our community and captivate individuals from all walks of life.”
Sophie Kelly, Artistic Director of Aspiring Conversations and Festival of Colour says. “We also look to bring in artists that we think are doing really interesting work that is fresh, new and interesting for our audiences to experience.”
Aspiring Conversations takes you out of the giant echo chamber of facebooking, Instagram and tik tok – instead they encourage a gathering of real people in real time to hear speakers who have real expertise in their fields.
Amongst the lineup of events, arts and culture are well featured.
To name a few, selling out in less than a week, Dirty Passports will kick off the festival at Rhyme X Reason Brewery on Thursday 4 April. From Chinese-Kiwi playwright Nathan Joe, Dirty Passports explores ‘your favourite minorities behaving badly… untwisting their tongues and shattering stereotypes all for the audience’s displeasure.’ Slam poetry and spoken word artists include Eric Soakai, Ngaio Simmons, Alvie McKree, and Rushi Vyas, a diverse range of artists from Māori, Samoan, Tongan, German, Scottish and Irish descent.
On Friday, we’ll hear from singer-songwriter Julia Deans, journalist Alice Soper, bestselling author Ruth Shaw, and local Wānaka mountaineer and author, Lydia Brady. These inspiring wāhine will share with us about a time when they took a chance.
On Saturday, Ngāi Tahu me Te Tiriti will explore Te Tiriti o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi in relation to Te Waipounamu / the South Island and the Kāi Tahu iwi. In this session, kaimahi / workers from the Ngāi Tahu Archive and representatives from the three marae nearest the Kāi Tahu signings will discuss how events in Te Waipounamu shaped those at Waitangi, and vice versa.
On Saturday night, creators of THE GODS THE GODS THE GODS featuring at the Festival of Colour 2023, present ‘Helios’ - a theatre performance told by Alexander Wright with an epic score by Phil Grainger. Award-winning "masters of storytelling", Wright & Grainger return from the UK , bringing their brand-new story about little things that leave big marks.
On Sunday Tower of Song includes writer and broadcaster Grant Smithies who will talk to three gifted New Zealand songwriters about their craft before they each sing a few of their favourites. We’ll find out what early experiences set Adam McGrath, Ebony Lamb and Julia Deans on the path towards this strange profession.
Tickets for this year’s Aspiring Conversations festival are selling out fast, with several shows already queuing up an impressive waiting list. Don’t wait, explore the programme and grab your tickets now!
Both Aspiring Conversations and the Wānaka Festival of Colour are supported by an incredible community of volunteers that help keep events running smoothly and are gratefully funded through donors within the community and major grant funders including the Central Lakes Trust, Queenstown Lakes District Council, Otago Community Trust and Creative New Zealand.
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Feature Image: Helios
Gallery Images: The Ko Kāi Tahu Me Te Tiriti : Mana Motuhaka by Kāi Tahu master carver Fayne Robinson - Photograph by Kirk Hargreaves.
