'60 minutes of non-stop what?': Young Critics week two

For three weeks we're supporting the work of budding young writers by publishing reviews from participants in the Young Critics Programme at the Auckland Arts Festival. It's a programme that aims to create a new generation of thoughtful reviewers, at a time when the crisis of critical arts writing is echoing around the world. 

This is our second instalment, and today four writers review The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave, La Ronde, and A Place in the Sultan's Kitchen.

The writers are:

Sugar Rea-Bruce is living a true artist's life. She has thrown herself into writing, devising, and performing since graduating Toi Whakaari in 2024. (All while freelancing, making money, and living life.) Her work aims to “stretch audience’s belief to breaking point”, incorporating physical theatre, puppetry, and live music into work that feels magical. With a passion for writing, she aims to gain more experience in all forms to fuel her future work.

Viola Ember is a sponge. Rarely far from a theatre seat, she sees on average one show a week, which fuels her discovery of a multi-faceted world and the many ways creativity can be explored. A 2025 graduate of The Actors’ Program, she recently pivoted from producing immersive visual art events (and writing the marketing copy to match) to acting. Since then, she’s been fully immersed in theatre life – performing in community productions, auditioning for screen, writing her own work, and showing up to any workshop that promises acting, devising, or movement. Currently in a happily exploratory stage, she’s soaking up as much as she can – both onstage and off. 

Merlia de Ridder loves a good drama; theatre with a sense of suspense, tension, and unique human connection. Working at ASB Waterfront Theatre allows her to watch a lot of this, adding to her training at NASDA and The Actor’s Programme. She delved deep into her own work in 2023 at the Little Andromeda Theatre in Christchurch with I Can Not Give Hugs, set in an age where AI creates ‘human’ connection indistinguishable from the real thing. She’s now delving further into directing, producing, a remount of her show, and if that wasn’t enough, recording her own music set to be released this month.

Holly Stephens has a real traveler's spirit. First dancing across the North Island for Royal Family Dance Crew shows and workshops (yes, of Parris Goebel fame!), then Tāmaki-wide for acting and crewing roles in the film and TV, then jumping the ditch to Melbourne for more acting roles. She’s now soon to take a sabbatical at a summer camp in North Carolina, USA. She has a script to finish along the way, and much to experience in her passions for food, mindfulness, and anthropology.

Without further ado, here are their first-ever reviews.

By Sugar Rea-Bruce 

A wristband, air thick with neon lit fog, and a bass line that thumps in time with your heart. This is not one of those magical nights out on the town in a grotty underground rave geared up and slick with sweat, no, this is a piece of theatre in the squeaky-clean curated space of Q Theatre. And I am about to witness a spectacle that means my jaw won’t leave the floor for the next hour.  

The Butterfly That Flew Into The Rave is an endurance dance piece that radiates joy, pain and sweat. Created by Oli Mathiesen, this show emulates the best rave you have ever been to, where there are no regrettable hookups or incessant vape breaks, just music pulsing in your veins and where your feet never stop moving. Choreographed and performed by Mathiesen, Lucy Lynch, and Sharvon Mortimer, the movement is hypnotic, drawing you into the daze of the rave making it impossible to look away. The movement shifts and merges into new choreography seamlessly. Full of motion that is powerful, exciting and never pretty. This dance we behold is raw and violent, simultaneously messy and perfectly precise with mundaneness leaping to aggressively sensual and feral in the span of minutes. Making the huge stage of the Rangatira seem effortlessly filled by only three performers.

The athleticism of these artists is something to be marvelled at and celebrated. And boy, do the audience know it. Shrieks, cheers and calls of encouragement leap from the crowd. My favourite being “Almost there darlings! You’re gonna sleep good tonight!” as we near the end. We are invited not only to watch this spectacle but to join in our own way, with audience members bouncing on chairs and leaning over railings, nodding along to the throbbing sound of the album Nocturbulous Behaviour created by Suburban Knight.

It would be remiss of me not to mention what I consider the fourth performer in this piece. The lighting. Never before have I been to a show where the lighting gets as much applause as performers but it is easy to see why. Lead lighting designer Shanell Bielawa in collaboration with Mathiesen, Bekky Boyce, Jazmin Whittall and Jacobus Engelbrecht, have created a lighting design that is as fluid, exciting and tight as the performance. A beautiful example of design aiding and elevating a work and sitting at equal importance to the performers. The lighting landscape takes us on a journey through the rave, from its low intimate spaces to flickering glimpses of limbs to what feels like sunlight kissing the performers faces.

The Butterfly That Flew Into The Rave feels like a good reminder that humans should dance more. Because movement is joy and joy is electric. At least that's how it feels in this small corner of the world in a squeaky-clean theatre surrounded by people that will lose their voices shouting their love to this incredible piece of work. So yes, you will catch me dancing soon, in no way as magnificently as these performers but I hope to feel as full as I dream they do afterwards. 

By Viola Ember

La Ronde is Strut and Fret’s latest spectacle to grace the Auckland Arts Festival - and packs a 90-minute punch (incl. interval).

The accordion of an old French cabaret song teases us into the glittering sphere of the Spiegeltent, its mirrored walls not dissimilar to the giant disco ball at the centre of the room. It has all the trappings of a classic cabaret – though what follows is anything but.

It’s astounding what the show delivers with a cast of only seven – which is testament to the multitalented performers – some of whom make several appearances throughout the night. 

Accompanied by a fast-paced soundtrack of party anthems (Stay’n Alive, I’m Sexy and I Know It, I’m Coming Out) and a dazzling light show with every act (Harry O’Meara) this show is saucy, sequined and sizzling hot. I particularly admired the use of lighting and sound to maximise the climax of each performance.

Set intimately in the round, La Ronde opens with an ensemble number masterfully sung by Geniris, throughout which we get glimpses into the alluring characters that will play host throughout the evening. 

The booming invisible voice of an MC welcomes us to the show, but there’s not much ‘warm up’ time for the audience to settle – and the first act abruptly begins. Maybe this is why I initially felt more like a tourist in this world of spectacle, rather than a guest invited to join it. 

This feeling shifts with the arrival of Nate Cooper, whose tap-dancing roller-skating cross-dressing clown (yes, you read that right!) easily disarms even the most reserved gentleman in the crowd – and soon we're primed for a Michelin star tasting menu of circus-cabaret.

And boy what a menu!

Serving raunchy, sassy, X-rated humour is Adam Malone, whose crowd-work is as admirable as the stilettoed hula hooping and aerial acts that follow. In a similar vein Felipe Rayes (hand balance, mouth hanging) is cheeky and charming, a true entertainer whose second performance is quite literally the hottest act of the night.

Keeping the crowd on the edge of their seats, Zoe Marshall’s hair hanging has her gliding over the front row of chairs while Maria Moncheva’s expert manipulation of aerial chains brings a delicious darkness and danger to the cabaret.

For the grand finale, the audience instantly falls in love with international sensation Svyatoslav Rasshivkin – a young aerialist who has the dreamy wonder-boy act down perfectly. Be warned - he’ll flick you a smouldering smile before effortlessly pulling off his death-defying stunts. 

The night finishes with a final iconic song by Geniris atop the disco ball and a quick bows sequence leaves you hungry for more. 

As a regular enjoyer of cabaret and circus – I can honestly say the individual acts themselves were fantastic. The overall structure of the show however did feel a little elusive. Transitions between major acts felt abrupt, and the pace of the show would lull as different backing tracks were faded in and out. 

Still, as I looked around the room after that final applause, it was clear La Ronde had worked its magic. Laughing, animated, excited, curious – the audience that left the Spiegeltent was fizzing with the kind of je ne sais quoi only a truly spectacular show could have delivered.

And while La Ronde may not follow a tidy structure, perhaps that’s the point. Like the mirrored theatre it inhabits, it is a glittering collage of personalities, characters, bodies and music - and you’d be a fool to miss it. 

Auckland Arts Festival performances of La Ronde are every Tuesday – Sunday, 5 – 22 March at the Spiegeltent, Aotea Square.

A review of A Place in the Sultan's Kitchen (or How to Make the Perfect One-Pot Chicken Curry)

By Merlia de Ridder

“Where are you from?”

The seemingly normal question is for too many of us, and for Joshua Hinton, asked on a daily basis. Hinton’s painful realisation growing up is that what they are really asking is “why are you brown?” I could not help but look around to see who in the audience would find this surprising, something they hadn’t previously considered a problematic question.

Now a 26-year-old, our storyteller, Hinton (performer & writer), reflects on the damaging experiences he had growing upas the only non-white, sitting in his pre-school cohort, wondering why everyone grimaced when he said that his favourite food was his “Mehmeh’s chicken curry.”

While taking on his search for answers, we journey through the process of making Mehmeh’s one-pot chicken curry onstage. With the use of camera projection through the help of his brother Dominic Hinton (sound designer & operator), who sits on the stage nearby, a bird's eye view of the cooking table is created. Joshua plays out his Mehmeh's life stories by using his cooking pot as a bomb shelter, the herb bottles as his family members, spraying herbs to create the fires and bombs that rained down during World War II. This translated a bit clunkily – I could see what they were aiming to achieve but could’ve used a bit of chaos to portray the mayhem and turmoil of those experiences.

Joshua sparked some deeper ideas when speaking about the rose-tinted glasses we wear when we are protected by the naivety of our youth. He explained how Mehmeh told him only the small details of her life, where she speaks of “the love and not the bomb shelters”. Young Joshua found himself having to put two and two together to figure out which events she had lived through. Between her beautiful Arabic Bahai prayer and Persian chant, a recording of her recounting her memories from planes roaring over her school dropping bombs to when her family were forced to flee across countries, gave us an insight into this incredible woman and the power of family love.

Joshua also spoke so fondly of his upbringing with his British grandparents on his father's side, ‘Poppi and Grandma’; a house that loved jazz and classical music and had a fair share of its own stories to tell. As Poppi had grown up in South Africa, the stories of living through Apartheid also became intertwined in their familial culture.

With such great stories and lessons to share, and with his brother Dominic on stage, adding quips to the dialogue, I was expecting and hoping for more genuine interaction between the two, going deeper by showing that family connection in real time. Although we did get a glimpse of it at the very end, when the two sang and played an original song together, ‘Evergreen’.

What I really appreciated was their use of the sense of smell - a chronically under-utilised sense in the world of theatre. Cooking on stage brings a real presence to the moment as the exotic smells of the curry waft through the air, and the sound of the sizzling onions keeps us on our toes. A Place in the Sultan’s Kitchen is a story of family and knowing that if you are ever lost in who you are, the smell and taste of your nana’s or Mehmeh's food will likely remind you.

So where does he truly belong? Well, after years of feeling like he had no answer, he has come to the conclusion that, actually, it is “anywhere and everywhere I feel at home.”

By Holly Stephens

The Butterfly Who Flew Into The Rave welcomes us to Q Theatre’s Ranatira stage without delay to party through 60 minutes of non-stop movement, effortlessly cool outfits and a swirling techno-beat.

Aotearoa-based artists Oli Mathiesen, Lucy Lynch, Sharvon Mortimer invite their audience to come together, clap their hands and explore a communal sense of focused athletic endurance and euphoric energetic release. Here for a short time only, as part of Te Ahurei Toi O Tāmaki, Auckland Arts Festival, 2026.

The title and description of this show piques curiosity while still not giving away too much, and I'd argue, ‘60-minutes of non-stop movement’ doesn't quite sum up what you’re in for either. However, if you’re on the fence of mystery, jump over and join the rave. You’ll land safely into a night of all the fun feelings a good dance floor offers. 

Afraid of commitment? These artists are not; one thing this dance floor promises is an equally committed light show. With strategically curated lighting design by Shanell Bielawa you can expect your moment of spotlight as the bare minimum in this relationship. Bielwa’s timing, use of gear and execution are truly a sight worth making the date for.

The last time I experienced the kind of awe that rocked me into silent observation at a show may have been Bruno Mars live at Spark Arena, 2018. I say this to encourage your imagination of what it truly means to be ‘sat’. Picture painted, hopefully?! On March 12th, this seated silence was felt again. Spending the majority of this performance present in my body, rather than mind, was both a surprise to me and a joyous change from theatre, where I’m dissecting juicy dialogue or beloved family dramas. Precise choices in choreography, sound and light are delivered perfectly without a word, leaving me no room to think twice. 

Yet still, within the hour of this dancing trio’s athletic feat, you may catch yourself a breath in recognizing a familiar beat, prop, or choreographic homage. Choreographer Mathiesen explains to us in an interview the endurance aspect is inspired by the experience of the pandemic. Hinting at “the collective societal enduring we went through over those few years.” It’s honestly quite exciting, that somehow, in this bliss-like-state of movement, there is space to recognize themes and layers of community, shedding, partying, resting, fitness, comedy, or whatever you wish to interpret and release on your night out.

So, if you’re still unsure what this 60 minutes of non-stop movement could offer you, I'd recommend the classic advice: you never regret a workout once it's done.

Next week, more young critics and more reviews.