The Liberal Agenda – Basement Theatre

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.

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

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

A live, unfolding and shapeshifting creation that drips, spreads, leaks and evolves. Sometimes intentionally, and sometimes not.

A variety of liquids, compounds, tools, and techniques are used to create art inspired by the psychedelic movement of the 60s and beyond.

Liquid Light will light up the entire Festival Hearth (outside Basement) for 2 nights with all creations projected on the garden walls. Plates will be available to interact with and you are invited to participate in designing your very own liquid existence.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

Sam Caldwell is the mastermind behind FOLA [AKL]’s favourite live, unfolding and shapeshifting creation that drips, spreads, leaks and evolves. In this workshop, Sam will guide you through experimenting with a variety of liquids, compounds, tools, and techniques to create art inspired by the psychedelic movement of the 60s and beyond.

A filthy, no-filter directors’ commentary with Johanna Cosgrove and Samuel Te Kani.

Tāmaki’s two most beloved rats pick through the wreckage of this iconic film to create their own chaotic masterpiece. Nothing’s sacred, nobody’s safe. It’s grim, it’s glorious, it’s falling apart at the seams — and you’re front row for the mess. If you like your art cooked and your heroes feral, grab a mulled wine, hop under a heater and get in the gutter with us.

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.

Our 2025 art brats will be seen all over the festival, yelling about the work they love, and soaking it all in for their future artworks. They’ll be having an informal chat together about art and life over a potluck brunch in Basement’s cozy studio space and you’re invited! Bring a plate and get ready to be served some hot takes, raucous reckons and audacious attitudes, alongside your BYO hashbrown and breakfast mimosa.

Hulla Gulla, meaning chaos in Hindi: a party to herald in the new lunar cycle with one last spin across the dance floor. Embrace chaos, release catharsis and your final excuse to go full throttle under the moonlight.

Wear comfy shoes. Move it like you mean it. Expect to sweat.

Full DJ lineup announced soon.

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.

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.

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.

There’s plenty of people who will say ‘comedy isn’t a “real job”’ but this is the only show which tests comedians to see if they’re capable of doing anything else. Through a series of quizzes and improv situations all based around one area of work, each comic will be vying to see who can walk away with the Champions title of “Employee of the Month”.

Hoani Hotene hosts, while two teams of comedians know their knowledge and improv skills to show that they’re more than just punchlines and the rule of threes. If you enjoy shows like QI and Thank God You’re Here this is the show for you!

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.

These shows* include:

– ESCAPING, a gay exposé about living, loving, losing and learning. Written and performed by Adam Burrell. A development season of this show was presented at BATS Wellington in April.

– PRAY, a gay exposé about faith, fa’ataupati, fellas and fellatio. Written and performed by Vincent Farane.

– LADY SINGS THE OOO’S, a gay exposé with oooh’s and aaah’s, and ew’s and nah’s. Written and performed by Nan