The Liberal Agenda – Basement Theatre

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The Liberal Agenda
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Mālo Basement aiga,

Manuia Le Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa i Aotearoa mai le Basement Theatre.

We’re back this week with SNART, where Luka Piripi plays Snart – an unapologetic narcissist in a live-animation spiral of ego, art, and chaos. Also happening next week, catch Bull Rush for your weekly dose of improv comedy.

In the Bar, we have 685 Day happening and we’re throwing a free celebration of Samoan identity, creativity, and connection through art, music, food, and storytelling.

Ia manuia,
Basement Theatre x

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Mālo Basement aiga,

Manuia Le Vaiaso o le Gagana Samoa i Aotearoa mai le Basement Theatre.

We’re back this week with SNART, where Luka Piripi plays Snart – an unapologetic narcissist in a live-animation spiral of ego, art, and chaos. Also happening next week, catch Bull Rush for your weekly dose of improv comedy.

In the Bar, we have 685 Day happening and we’re throwing a free celebration of Samoan identity, creativity, and connection through art, music, food, and storytelling.

Ia manuia,
Basement Theatre x
685 Day
03 June, 5:30pm. Bar.This Samoan Language Week, we’re throwing a free celebration of Samoan identity, creativity, and connection through art, music, food, and storytelling.

What’s on:
Flash tattoos by Hiram Vaeau (5–10pm)
No Drama: Unplugged – live sets from Jarna, Spdrtwnbby, Lijah Mavaega
Poetry from Jonjon & Mush
Pop-up art exhibition Lua Selau Pasege by Jasmine Tuia & Jimmy Ma’ia’i
Keke pua‘a, keke mamoe, panipopo & Taula beers

Come through. Celebrate. Connect. 🇼🇸
Free Event
SNART
03 – 07 June, 6.30pm. Studio. Choose What You Pay.Dear Snart,I have decided to make a show about a slice of your life, despite the controversies. I’m going to be playing you as you sort of go about the stuff with Bonker… that self-portrait you fell in love with, if you remember. We’re gonna have them projected on-stage as like a live animation type thing. It’s kinda just gonna follow you being a bitch for an hour or so. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Reluctant love,
Luka.
Book Now
Bull Rush
6 June, 10pm. Studio.No Friday night will ever be the same again.With a roster of Tāmaki Makaurau’s best and brightest performers, expect spit-take- worthy gags, epic stories, heartbreaking tales, and live improvised music at Bull Rush.

So gather your mates for a night of never before seen, totally made up, improvised comedy every Rāmere Friday.

Mess with the bull, feel the rush.

Since 2020, Bull Rush have been making it up as they go. With several seasons (Jingle Bull(Rush), Ghoul Rush, 1822) under their belt, these self-professed improv nerds know how to put on a bloody good show.

Winners of Best Improv Group at the 2024 NZ Comedy Guild Awards, among other accolades (not to brag.
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F.O.L.A [AKL]: Moon Prism Power Bottom
11 – 14 June, 5pm. Festival Hearth.A drenched pageant under a new moon. A memory evaporating from the bodies of women.Pageant Moon is a recollection of intimacy, on loop. A kaleidoscoped pair of lovers. A mother and child blurring together in the shallows.

This outdoor movement installation invites you into a nostalgic dreamscape of softening and breaking- slowly, mentally, cellularly.

Pageant Moon extends Presley’s continued exploration of death and dying from a queer Māori perspective. It holds close the slow, small, and sometimes unnoticed losses we experience as humans, and the indistinct but vital impacts of these mundane grievances upon the way that we move through the world.
Book Now
F.O.L.A [AKL]: Return: A Rain Walk
11-14 June, 6.30pm. Basement/Myers Park.A walk in the rain guided by the recorded voices of children from across Australia and Aotearoa for all ages, by UK live artists Andy Field and Beckie Darlington.Revel in a walk in the rain, by yourself, with a friend or the whole family.

A stunning audio experience reminding us to find joy and wonder in the small things. Accompanied by the recorded voices of children from across Australia and Aotearoa, the rainfall will become your own private theatre, a space in which to observe, imagine and play. Whether in a drizzle or a deluge, we invite you to step outside, feel the rain on your face, and think about your place in a world that is changing so swiftly around you.

NOTE: This is an audio experience that requires a smartphone. When you register your ticket you will need to pick up a small box with instructions from Basement Theatre. This work can take place anytime but best enjoyed in the rain.

Photo: Jemima Yong
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F.O.L.A [AKL]: Moonrise Keynote: Ahakoa Te Ahi
11 June, 4.30pm. Myers Park (Meet Outside). A mass ritual under the light of the full moon. Bring your bells.F.O.L.A. [AKL] has summoned exuberant Taranaki artist and social alchemist Grayson Goffe to orchestrate a public participation, mass ritual under the light of the Full Moon. Igniting the heartbeat of our festival, this event invites you to ring your bells and meet the elements in a collective open-air rite.

Binding three tempos of Ahi (fire), Wai (water) & Whenua (earth), this procession and ceremony reflect the Te Ao Maori approach to BELONGING – Ahakoa te Ahi, No matter the Fire.

Melding fire and warmth with the cool and sacred waters of Waihorotiu, running beneath Myers Park, this moment of communion unfolds through sound, bodies and voice, lifting the veil, dissolving the everyday and stepping through to the artistic underground of Tāmaki Makaurau.

“As a Mataawaka (Urbanised) practitioner & Whanau Rerenga (Refugee family), together we embrace our troubling realities, lived experiences & adversity as a form of resistance and as opportunities for growth, conceptualizing through sound and movement; spirit of whenua, resonance of belonging and calls of home.”

The sounds of this ritual will be captured and played each day of the festival at Moonrise, keeping the fire burning. Thursday 12 June at 5:31pm, Friday 13 June at 6.30pm & Saturday 14 June at 7:34pm.
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F.O.L.A [AKL]: Art Brats Art Party
11 June, 9.30pm. Foyer & Festival Hearth. “Calling all ART BRATS! You know who you are!Your attendance is required at the ART BRAT PARTY from 9.30pm till midnight. For a classic arty and bratty opening night knees up. Join us in our warm, cozy, immersive Festival Hearth amongst Tyrone Te Waa’s interactive Fleapit sculpture and Mush and Sione’s playful, uncanny and glittering visuals, Moon Prism Power Bottoms, with DJ Sarah providing the feel good fuzzies on the decks.”
Free Event
F.O.L.A [AKL]: Pageant Moon
11 June, 6.30pm. The Slab.A drenched pageant under a new moon. A memory evaporating from the bodies of women.Pageant Moon is a recollection of intimacy, on loop. A kaleidoscoped pair of lovers. A mother and child blurring together in the shallows.

This outdoor movement installation invites you into a nostalgic dreamscape of softening and breaking- slowly, mentally, cellularly.

Pageant Moon extends Presley’s continued exploration of death and dying from a queer Māori perspective. It holds close the slow, small, and sometimes unnoticed losses we experience as humans, and the indistinct but vital impacts of these mundane grievances upon the way that we move through the world.
Book Now
F.O.L.A [AKL]: Fetū x Fetu’u
11 June, 8.30pm. Theatre.Fetū x Fetu’u chronicles the multifaceted experiences of Moe Laga as a Samoan Fa’afafine born in Aotearoa, grappling with the complexities of life in South Auckland.This new work by Moe Laga delves into profound themes of grief, god/s, taboos, sex, pop cultural witchery, and the VĀ. The dichotomy of “Stars” and “Curses” underscores the piece, with stars symbolizing hope, dreams, and the cosmos — while curses represent pain, misfortune, and dark.

Fetū x Fetu’u, evokes a journey through the celestial and the terrestrial, the sacred and the profane. Through this evocative performance, Laga invites the audience to explore the interplay between light and shadow.
Book Now
F.O.L.A [AKL]: BTM Voices of Vessels
12 June, 8.30pm. Theatre.BTM The Voice of Vessels expands on Sung Hwan Bobby Park’s visceral exploration of creation and sexuality.The next work in the BTM series, Park sculpts clay through fisting, forming ceramic vessels and excavating microphones and karaoke hits. Vulnerable and powerful, this irreverent performance art work is a dual act of creation and liberation.

Delving into queer identity through raw, embodied expression, Park intertwines the physicality of clay-making with the emotional release of song.
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F.O.L.A [AKL]: MDF (Medium Density Fantasy)
13 June, 8.30pm. Theatre.A hypocritical critique of personal brand. A proclamation from a high horse. SOFT Co. is here asking its audience to trust them, though there may be reasons not to.From the makers of HEALR and Inflated Rebel, MDF is at once a signature genre-bending dance escapade, and a disintegration of the contracts of presentation.

(medium density fantasy) is the second work in SOFT.co’s performance research series MDF, in collaboration with lighting artist Elekis Poblete-Tierney. MDF looks at the elation and problematics of self-representation and branding in the making of work and the making of oneself. Flags and banners, statements of intent, frames-within-a-frame. SOFT.co works with a process of rigorous confusion to query the performativity of performance in personal and political arenas.
Book Now
F.O.L.A [AKL]: Queer Powerpoint
12 – 13 June, 6pm/10pm. Theatre.Don’t miss the Aotearoa debut of cult hit Queer PowerPoint at FOLA 2025. Watch the deepest recesses of your notes app come to life as queer artists, thinkers, babes and glorious weirdos from across Auckland share their burning passions, most cooked theories and secret desires for your viewing pleasure.The only rule… they must use Microsoft’s most mundane medium PowerPoint. Co-hosts Harriet Gillies and Xanthe Dobbie will take you on a guided journey through this fantasia of hot takes, heartfelt moments, and heated debates, one starwipe at a time.

Produced by Unfunded Empathy. This project is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.

Submit YOUR Queer Powerpoint here: https://www.queerpowerpoint.com/be-in-a-show
Book Now
F.O.L.A [AKL]: Glory Whole
14 June, 8.30pm. Theatre.A bathroom stall with a viewing hole remains constant. A portal between states of being, a liminal space where identities dissolve and reform as perfectionism confronts authenticity — through which the audience is invited to question its own voyeurism.Glory Whole is a collaboration between brutalist sewer-pop trio Grecco Romank and drag-creature Copper MaeSteal. Over 60 minutes, four dream-logic scenes continuously evolve. Each segment a grotesque interpretation of society’s maladaptive tendencies — from over-consumption of fitness culture, to the body-horror of plastic surgery, the psychosexual melodrama of the boudoir before dissolving into a collective communion of self-annihilation.

Audiences move freely through the space alongside performers, experiencing the metamorphosis firsthand, soundtracked by Grecco Romank and Copper MaeSteal’s transgressive movement work.
Book Now
F.O.L.A [AKL]: Materiel World (TAS)
14 June, 6.30pm. Theatre.In this artwork, the artists attempt to mine copper from the community to shoot back into the earth.Materiel World explores the physical, logistical, and social lives of objects via a highly loaded question: can we keep it in the ground?

Mixing metallurgy and dramaturgy, the artists will attempt to reverse-mine community e-waste for copper, preparing it to shoot back from whence it came. Along the way, they explosively collide with the intersecting laws, ethics, and regulations that guide the lifespan of risky objects: as raw matter, as tools, and as waste.

The word “Materiel”, as used in the title, is the military definition for equipment and munitions: non-human inventory managed by the armed forces. From swords, to plowshares, and back again.

In Materiel World, artist Loren Kronemyer is seeking E-Waste from the community – to be collaboratively dismantled and transmuted. Visitors can contribute their discarded tech – from tangled cords to dead devices – which will be mined for copper and lovingly re-cast for an eventual return to the earth.

What kind of e-waste can you bring?
We’re looking for small, dismantle-able items – especially things with copper inside.

– Audio and USB cables (any length, any condition – the more tangled, the better)
– Power cords and chargers
– Old headphones or earbuds
– Broken remote controls
– Dead phones, MP3 players, or portable electronics
– Computer mice, keyboards, or hard drives
– Small electronic toys or gadgets
– Miscellaneous e-waste bits from the bottom of your drawer

NOTE: We can’t accept Large Household, Kitchen or Laundry Appliances. If you can carry it in one hand & If it once had a working wire, plug, or beep – we’ll take it.

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body. This project has been developed with support from SPACED and Contemporary Art Tasmania.
Book Now
HAU Festival: Tāne Rore
17 – 21 June, 6:30pm/8pm. Theatre.TĀNE RORE is a devised, bilingual theatre extravaganza that features singing, dance, haka and authentic storytelling through text (monologue and poetry) featuring BIPOC male-identifying performers. Scattered with songs, dance (contemporary, hip-hop, Pasifika) and haka elements, Basement audiences are in for a powerful and moving experience celebrating the Māori atua (deity) of performing arts.This is the ‘brother-show’ of HINE-TE-RĒHIA presented in 2022, and at BATS Wellington last year.

Please note that the 20th June performance starts at 6.30PM.
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HAU Festival: Garage Party
20 June, 8pm. Theatre.MATARIKI: 20 June (FREE EVENT)GARAGE PARTY presents an incredible all-female, all-rainbow line-up of Māori and Pasifika musicians performing throughout the night at this free event at the Basement. This is an old-school jam session, join us for some sumptuous Māori-inspired kai, and a couple of inu’s as we welcome in the Māori New Year.

Featuring Daughters of Ally (Jessie & Georgina Matthews), Liana Frangipani, DJ Ayesha and Bonnie Hurunui from White Chapel Jak.
Book Now
How can I support Basement Theatre? Donations help us keep advocating for artists. Becoming a Basement Lover or a Basement Mate is the best way you can continually support us – and you get some bonus treats too!

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