The Nelson Arts Festival

Leonie Hall takes us behind the scenes to meet festival's unsung heroes | Photography by Daniel Rose


The Nelson Arts Festival is set to light up our social calendars once more. For many local builders, students, artists and writers (like me) it marks the time when we become crew members for the event-laden summer season.

This time last year, I had my first taste of the festival. Never one to shy away from hard work, I soon became a regular on the events scene – one of the people that transforms venues, makes sure each show flows seamlessly from one to the next and packs it all away for next time.

This year, the festival continues with the theme of ‘light’. Timely and appropriate, considering that the festival is without its community events dynamo, Kim Merry, who passed away in August. The festival family has lost one of its brothers, and for the first time in 15 years, creative director Annabel Norman is without her colourful sidekick.

“Kim’s training had taught him how to transform a community through masks, celebration and ceremony. The focus of the festival is really about community. It brings tourism, which is great, but it’s actually about this community – people coming out, engaging and celebrating together,” says Annabel.

A sense of community and environmental awareness continues to underpin the Nelson Arts Festival at every stage of production. Annabel and the festival team practise what they preach: reduce, reuse, recycle and respect.

“They’re a part of everything we do. From using found materials rather than bought ones (where we can) to responsibly disposing of rubbish. From feeding the crew and eating healthily to how we treat people. That ethos has grown really strong within the festival. We’re also coaching our ushers to make people feel welcome, and to try to make people feel that the festival is for them. We want everyone to come and have a nice experience. I get that from the crew too. Everyone is happy and kind to each other. There’s no yelling and screaming amongst the team,” says Annabel.

Technical director Antony Hodgson collaborates with Annabel to fulfil the practical needs of the festival. “Annabel and I work closely together. As she looks at shows, she always checks with me about where they’re going to fit; whether one show is going to fit next to another. Once the programme is locked down, I start lining up what each show needs in terms of sound, staging, structure and venue, and the crew that’s needed at each venue to run it.”

Antony always leads by example. Under his guidance we all find ourselves working as hard as we can. Not because we fear his wrath (of which I suspect there is none) but because his love and consideration inspires us to do the best job we can. Annabel agrees, “If the whole world could figure out that mentality, then we’d get much more done and in a kinder manner. People respond to someone who respects you and treats you as an equal, and doesn’t make demands on you. You actually work much harder for them, don’t you?”

Like Kim, Antony relishes the level of community engagement that the festival brings. “The community events are what make the Nelson Arts Festival different to the other mainstream arts festivals.

It gives Nelson a place to participate creatively, like in the Masked Parade and those kinds of community events. It also brings us the best of what’s being put on around New Zealand; especially this year because we’ve gone back to having more theatre, rather than just a music-based festival. It’s bringing the best of New Zealand’s creative performances and some international performances to Nelson.”

Last year, the festival received some criticism over the perceived lack of local content in the programme. Antony says it’s a hard call. “If you look at the amount of local content in the festival, there’s actually a lot. Mojo were on the stage at the carnival, and a lot of the smaller events that help to fill out the festival are local. But they’re not headliner acts.”

In addition, the festival is one of the few times of the year when locals can see imported talent from the comfort of their own backyards. And surely our own performing artists would benefit from an injection of new inspiration and energy.

“It seems to me that if you’re going to choose between seeing a theatre production by an Auckland company or a local production that you can see any time of the year, not many people are going to miss out on the import. During the festival you can go to a show for between $30 and $48, without having to fly somewhere, pay for accommodation and pay a high ticket price. So it makes really good contemporary theatre, music and dance available to Nelsonians.”

While ticket prices may still limit the number of shows that locals can afford to attend, executive producer Sophie Kelly says they are as affordable as they come. “We really do strive to keep our ticket prices accessible. And I think sometimes people don’t really quite understand the concept of the cost either. We scrape the barrel. We never make money at a festival; we work to break even.”

This year’s line-up contains a significant number of New Zealand acts. Annabel is pragmatic: “There are fewer international works and there’re two reasons for that. Firstly, we did that deliberately because during tough economic times we’ve got to be a little bit cautious about bringing in too many works from overseas. We do need to bring in international works, but flying people in from all over the world to come and sing to us seems a bit ludicrous. However, Micheline van Hautem, for example, was doing an Australia/New Zealand tour anyway, so we’ve linked into that.”

“And secondly, as I’ve been looking at works overseas, I realised that New Zealand has really come of age. There’s just as much fantastic performance in New Zealand as there is internationally, like The Butler. That’s why we brought it back. It was as good as, or better, than anything I’ve seen. And people like Anika Moa; these New Zealand performers are international performers who travel the world. So it’s an international programme using New Zealand shows.”

For the second year running, Founders Park is the Nelson Arts Festival’s main hub. Although the move to Founder’s Park created some public debate by virtue of it being out of town, it has now become a venue that the festival would be sad to leave.

Sophie recalls, “We were quite nervous about whether it would work at Founders, but we were blown away. The feedback from all the surveys we did over the festival period was just incredibly positive about Founders. For families in particular, it had a lot of appeal because it’s safe and familiar. You want to try and keep a little bit of momentum within the festival too, and often if you have everything scattered it gets a bit disjointed.”

According to Antony, Founders also gives locals the encouragement to socialise more during the festival. “Kiwis usually arrive as late as they can to a show, rush in, watch it and are out the door before the clapping has finished. There isn’t a culture of hanging around or getting there early to chat with people, have a drink and a bite to eat, and certainly not afterwards. I think the environment at Founders relaxes people a lot. They know they can leave work and go straight to where they’re going to see a couple of shows. They can eat, drink, chat, stroll or look at the sculptures.”

Next year, the newly-refurbished Theatre Royal will replace the Founders Mainstage as the principal performance venue. According to Sophie, it’s an exciting move. “At the moment, presenting dance is really difficult for us. We’d love to bring in some big dance shows but we can’t hold them in the Mainstage because you need the right seating, floor, and venue capacity of 300+, which is what the Theatre Royal will be really great for.”

Antony feels the same. “When we have the Theatre Royal back next year we’ll be able to start bringing in some technically difficult productions. By then, it’ll be a fully functioning theatre with a fly floor, and there’ll even be curtains and a stage!”

Transforming the current venues on a slim budget takes an inventive team that’s able to create something out of nothing. The self-titled ‘Mistress of Soft Furnishings’, Cynthia Lorrian, performed magic at last year’s festival. With just a few scraps of lycra and a roll of frost cloth, she was able to transform the Founders Granary into a stylish lounge bar. “Having been a solo parent and for many years living on the DPB, I have a really good idea of how to make something go a long way. I think that my biggest training for this job is that! Even if I had no budget, I’d be able to make it look great.”

Last year, I had a defining moment when I saw Cynthia transform Founders’ most hideous stock-standard chairs into elegant dining seating using small squares of red lycra. Her creativity seems to know no bounds. “It’s just playing! It’s looking at something and going, ‘It needs something. What is it?’ So I play with it… then play with it some more… then change it. And somebody comes in and goes, ‘That would be great in red, wouldn’t it?’ So it’s my team and me; it’s definitely a co-creative space.”

During the festival, crew members work almost around the clock. Along with a technical crew, Antony will be working long after the applause has ceased. “There are probably about 30 people who have some kind of contact with setting up and running the festival, and the core of that is only about eight. They do a lot of hours!” We delight in some all-knowing laughter before Antony adds, “Eight people doing 12 to 16-hour days for 24 days.” By the end of two weeks, the core eight will be sleep deprived and considerably more ragged than they were at the beginning.

Duncan McFarlane has been working on the festival for around 10 years. For four weeks, his life consists of two things: sleep and the festival! “That’s how much hard work it is. But it’s also exhilarating. You spend the day setting up and making it happen. Then there’s the show for the night, after which you pack down and put the next one in, and it’s amazing. It’s nice being able to create something really lovely and beautiful for another person.”

Since Annabel’s early days of creating stages out of MDF and apple palettes, the glamour of lifting the chairs and building the sets is still pretty low. Luckily, Duncan sees the bigger picture: “All the lifting of chairs and so forth are a small component of a greater whole. Every job has its crappy tasks. You’ve just got to take the good with the bad. Yes, there’s a lot of heavy lifting but there’s more to it than that. The attention to detail is still important, such as how you stack the chairs or how straight a row you put them in – a lot of people would overlook that. It’s like Zen-ing the venue; making the venue look well-loved and welcoming for our guests.”

This year’s festival is a time to participate and celebrate. Already, Duncan is bubbling with enthusiasm. “It’s exciting because the whole festival family is having a wonderful time. It’s what we want to do. It’s our passion and our love. And going from one event to another is like living on one high after another. You could say it’s like an adrenaline junkie getting his fix. Some people mountain bike, some people windsurf, some people jump off cliffs. We do shows and events!”

A Tribute to Kim Merry (8 February 1963-8 August 2009)

This year’s Nelson Arts Festival is dedicated to the love and inspiration of Kim Merry: the visionary behind the festival’s community events.

After his recent passing, the arts community rallied together to give him a celebration that, like Kim himself, was full of magic. The procession from the Cathedral to Fairfield House had all the theatre and spectacle of the Masked Parade. While stilt walkers blew bubbles overhead, a band followed to serenade him… big-band style. Rainbow-coloured mourners with flags and giant-sized love hearts, and jesters in hats and costumes, revealed the community spirit that Kim created through his love of family and fun.

While this year’s festival will be without his luminous presence, his legacy continues through every community performance and parade, and in living life with love, laughter and play.

Antony Hodgson

As a creative director, Kim had a unique working style. He would round up a herd of wild ideas and gallop alongside them, seeing how they might fit together. His artistic choices always seemed to lead us down the path of the wacky, the grotesque and the out of the ordinary.

Cynthia Lorrian

Our Kimmy was a very compassionate man working for and with his community to make the world a happier place. I love that he loved our mother earth and was working hard to save her. I witnessed him inspire young environmentalists to become a generation of new leaders with a conscience.

Sophie Kelly

Kim taught me to look at the world in a whole different way. His ability to find the hilarious side in the most mundane of tasks was an inspiration to us all. Anyone who met Kim knew immediately that they were lucky to have known him. His generosity, passion to share his beliefs and creative vision were a gift to all of us. Kim was a closet fashion guru too, you know. Or at least he was the only person I’ve ever met who could wear tartan pants with a polka-dot shirt and get away with it!

Annabel Norman

He would always say, “I’m so rich, because I have everything I could possibly want. I have a beautiful family and great work.” It was never about money. He felt wealthy in everything he had around him and he transferred that feeling to the events he ran; that sense of beauty in simplicity.