FREE THEATRE CHRISTCHURCH
  • ABOUT
    • Manifestos and Writings
    • A brief history...
    • Who We Are
    • The University Connection
    • Shirley Horrocks documentary
    • Training and Devising
    • Home, Space and Design
  • HOME
  • WHATS ON
    • The Passionate Puritan
  • EDUCATION
    • Kids Holiday Programmes
    • Schools Workshops
    • Adult workshops
  • PRODUCTIONS 1979 - present
    • The Cat Eleonore
    • The Deadbeat Opera
    • Babylon Berlin
    • Beggars Banquet
    • Woyzeck
    • The Axe
    • Endgame
    • Digitising Performance
    • Erewhon: Over the Range
    • A Summer Night's Dream
    • How Dare You
    • A Winter's Tale
    • Ars Acustica
    • Alice
    • The Black Rider
    • Frankenstein
    • The Mauricio Kagel Project
    • Footprints/Tapuwae
    • Kafka's Amerika
    • Ubu Nights >
      • Past Ubu Nights >
        • Ma Ubu Night
        • Ubu Through the Looking Glass
        • Ubu in Wonderland Ubu Night
        • Frankenstein Ubu Night
        • Casablanca Ubu Night
        • Faust Ubu Night
        • Not Hamlet Ubu Night
        • Punk Ubu Night
        • The Art of the Deal Ubu Night
        • Crossroads Ubu Night
        • Ubu Shows Us the Way to Brecht's Whiskey Bar
        • The Devil and the Blues Ubu Night
        • Bowie Ubu Night
        • Warhol Ubu Night
        • Berlin Kabarette
        • Beat Ubu Night
        • Twin Peaks Ubu Night
        • David Lynch Ubu Night
        • Kafka Ubu Night
        • Tango Ubu Night
        • Ubu Ubu Night
        • Lovecraft Ubu Night
    • Canterbury Tales
    • The Soldier's Tale
    • Bluebeard's Castle >
      • Bluebeard's Castle credits
    • I Sing the Body Electric
    • Big Heads Protest
    • Hereafter
    • Passion, Pulse and Power
    • The Earthquake in Chile
    • Don Giovanni Invites you to Dinner
    • Doctor Faustus
    • The Marvellous Corricks >
      • Corricks - Credits
    • Distraction Camp
    • Remake
    • Ella and Susn
    • There and Back Again
    • Faust Chroma
    • Enigma Emmy Goering/Nico Sphinx of Ice
    • Change Proposal
    • Faust Feast
    • Diana Down Under
    • Philoctetes >
      • Production Credits - Piloctetes
    • Fantasia
    • Christmas Shopping
    • Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
    • Achternbusch in the Antipodes
    • Caucasian Chalk Circle
    • Samson Airline
    • Antigone
    • Kabarett Kabul
    • Footprints/Tapuwae
    • The Well Intentioned Wife
    • The Last Days of Mankind
    • Bakkhai / Diotek
    • Krapp's Last Tape
    • Murderer Hope of Women / The Philosopher's Stone
    • Comrade Savage
    • Love on a Bicycle
    • Crusoe: A Lapsarian Mass in Twelve Movements
    • Medea
    • Songs to the Judges
    • Resolution Island
    • Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus
    • The Empire Builders
    • States of Shock
    • Robinson Crusoe or: I That Was Born To Be My Own Destroyer
    • Power
    • MedeaMaterial
    • Salome
    • Electra
    • The Girl Who Sings Waterfalls
    • Hamletmachine
    • Oresteia
    • A Respectable Wedding
    • Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
    • Cloudkiwiland
    • Double Act / Postponeless >
      • double act credits
    • Preversions
    • The Mortal Pleasure of Wander Lust
    • Red Cross & Takeaway
    • Lulu
    • Cowboy Mouth
    • The Meeting >
      • the meeting credits
    • Action / Tongues
    • The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
    • A Letter from L
    • Dinosaurs and All the Rubbish / The Hunting of the Snark
    • Free Theatre Christmas Show
    • The Ride Across Lake Constance
    • Electra
    • In Three Minds
    • The Rapist Over Suzannah
    • 1984: The Future Is Now
    • Make-up Ground down / Texts for Decomposition
    • Leonce and Lena
    • Court Case: Free Theatre vs The Arts Centre
    • The Almost Free Theatre Kabernette
    • The Joffongract
    • King Lear
    • Kabarett
    • King Ubu
    • Black Cat Cabaret
    • The Gas Heart/Ox on the Roof/The Mirror Wardrobe One Fine Evening
    • Jazz Cellar Dada / Heavy Metal Cabaret
    • Round Dance
    • Woyzeck
  • Te Puna Toi
    • Past Te Puna Toi Projects
    • Artists in Residence
  • SUPPORT
  • CONTACT
  • CNZ application

Canterbury Tales

26-27 October, 2013, Bridge of Remembrance, Oxford Terrace, Ōtākaro - Avon River, The Square
production credits
Following on from the success of LUXCITY, this year’s main event for FESTA 2013 is the carnivalesque Canterbury Tales, conceived and led by Free Theatre Christchurch. This extravaganza of light, colour and interactivity will delight, stimulate and offer reflection as we explore the past, present and future of Christchurch.

At 8.30pm the procession of large puppets and masked performers will assemble near the Bridge of Remembrance and follow a specific path through the central city at night: along the river to Worcester Bridge before ending at the heart of the city in Cathedral Square. Spectators can join the procession at any point as it moves through different sites that come alive with diverse performances, soundscapes, lights, hospitality, interactive architecture and installations.

​This unique experience is the major event for this year’s festival, creating a city-within-a-city based around different Canterbury tales - expect to see the city like you’ve never seen it before! Dress up, wear a mask and come join the carnival of Canterbury Tales.
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Canterbury Tales
Symposium
Meet the Puppets
Workshop and Design
Dress Rehearsal
Site Preparation
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The lead Friar embraces Christchurch Mayor Lianne Dalziel.
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We love theatre, music, cultural events, art –
just look at the numbers that flowed into Cathedral Square
for Canterbury Tales
during FESTA...

- Mayor Lianne Dalziel
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Views and Reviews

You'd be forgiven for thinking you'd stepped right into a children's storybook.

Giant puppets take over Christchurch streets (see clip below)
Chloe Palmer, TV3 News, 28 October, 2013
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Ahh Christchurch, you missed another good one.... All of the friars were full of antics, embracing the audience with huge hands, high-fiving children and making small disputes
with other characters.

​
Signature event a parade of wit and satire
Will Harvie, The Press, 28 October, 2013
Against the background of razed remains and unfamiliar spaces, the generous spirit of festival is all the more telling. As a pilgrimage, the event and its creators achieve the miracle of wonder.

Pilgrimage achieves the miracle of wonder
Lin Clark, Theatreview, 28 October 2013
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...a fantastic display of creativity, ingenuity and organization, and one of the most uplifting weekends that Christchurch has seen since, well, the last FESTA in 2012. The carnivalesque procession went from the Bridge of Remembrance to Cathedral Square, and while that might not seem like a long walk, as the puppets and floats meandered along, the two hours flew by. In the small
park at the Worcester St bridge, Bruce Russell (above) wailed on his guitar, whilst a barely-clad woman was suspended above the plinth that used to support the statue of Robert Falcon Scott – given her lack of clothes, she was probably about as cold as the Captain..... When the procession reached the food tents at the corner of Worcester and Oxford, many of the friars ran off to try and get something to eat. Gerry was heard asking for chips on a number of occasions.


Festa round-up
James Dann, Rebuilding Christchurch, 28 October 2013
...the interaction between the puppets and the audience was the magical stuff.

​Three_best_things_about_Festa
Will Harvie, The Press, 29 October, 2013
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Huge puppets were a highlight of the street parade.

Architecture_with_a_modern_twist

Will Harvie, Christchurch Mail, October 31, 2013
When Lou Reed died, I was on stage on the other side of the world, wearing whiteface make-up, dressed as Baron Samedi, Lord of the Cemetary and of Crossroads. I was playing guitar in a civic pageant and giant puppet show, to the manifest horror of all solid citizens, peeling off a ten minute burst of hysterically overamped atonal noise. This symbolised the destruction wrought on my city by 10,000 earthquakes, as well as the ceaseless historical onrush of all-consuming capitalism, consigning us to annihilation. And the reason I was doing it was, quite simply: Lou Reed.

Oh sweet nothin'
Bruce Russell, The Wire, October, 2013
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The experience of Canterbury Tales has given us the confidence that the public also shares our desire to make our post-quake city into an innovative work and playground where it is exciting to live.
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Creative thinkers engage with real world problems
Ryan Reynolds, George Parker and Peter Falkenberg, The Press, 18 November, 2013
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...we try and reverse the usual idea of building buildings and then hoping people will inhabit them; we start with the rituals that bring people together and that represent the community searching for a sense of self, and then build around these gatherings.

​
Making Possible

Peter Falkenberg quoted in article by Clare Chapman, Architecture Now, January, 2014
Unlike normal puppets their interior workings were visible so you could see the strings being pulled and the wheels being turned.

​
Rebuild_needs_to_get_moving
Lyall Lukey, The Press, 25 March, 2014
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What has been happening in Christchurch may come to be viewed as a model of resistance against the dominant culture's drive towards the status quo ante.... We may be at a time in Christchurch, as everywhere, when we must, like the Angel, confront catastrophe that, being of our own making, is even more virulent than an earthquake.

After the Rupture: Restoration or Revolution?

Thea Brejzek & Peter Falkenberg, Performance Research 19-6, 2014

Previews and Publicity

John Sellwood, Campbell Live, 21 October 2013 (see clip above)
Influentials: Christchurch arts after the quakes
Sally Blundell, Listener, 28 September 2013

​Canterbury Tales
Lynn Freeman interviewing Tanya Muagututi'a and George Parker
RNZ Arts on Sunday, 10 October 2013


GO Arts - A City Within
Vicki Anderson, The Press, 11 October 2013

A Canterbury tale of Rebirth
Charlie Gates, The Press, 18 October 2013

FESTA - creating a city-within-a-city
Vicki Anderson, The Press, 21 October 2013

Time to bring an empty city to life
George Parker, The Press, 22 October 2013

FESTA's Canterbury Tales - Better living through puppetry
Grant Cattermole, Christchurch City Libraries, 23 October 2013
​

From Under the fale Pacific Underground rises
The Big Idea, 24 October 2013


What city do we want to emulate?
Johnny Moore, The Press, 24 October 2013

Duck, it's time for a parade
The Press, Thursday 24 October 2013
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  • ABOUT
    • Manifestos and Writings
    • A brief history...
    • Who We Are
    • The University Connection
    • Shirley Horrocks documentary
    • Training and Devising
    • Home, Space and Design
  • HOME
  • WHATS ON
    • The Passionate Puritan
  • EDUCATION
    • Kids Holiday Programmes
    • Schools Workshops
    • Adult workshops
  • PRODUCTIONS 1979 - present
    • The Cat Eleonore
    • The Deadbeat Opera
    • Babylon Berlin
    • Beggars Banquet
    • Woyzeck
    • The Axe
    • Endgame
    • Digitising Performance
    • Erewhon: Over the Range
    • A Summer Night's Dream
    • How Dare You
    • A Winter's Tale
    • Ars Acustica
    • Alice
    • The Black Rider
    • Frankenstein
    • The Mauricio Kagel Project
    • Footprints/Tapuwae
    • Kafka's Amerika
    • Ubu Nights >
      • Past Ubu Nights >
        • Ma Ubu Night
        • Ubu Through the Looking Glass
        • Ubu in Wonderland Ubu Night
        • Frankenstein Ubu Night
        • Casablanca Ubu Night
        • Faust Ubu Night
        • Not Hamlet Ubu Night
        • Punk Ubu Night
        • The Art of the Deal Ubu Night
        • Crossroads Ubu Night
        • Ubu Shows Us the Way to Brecht's Whiskey Bar
        • The Devil and the Blues Ubu Night
        • Bowie Ubu Night
        • Warhol Ubu Night
        • Berlin Kabarette
        • Beat Ubu Night
        • Twin Peaks Ubu Night
        • David Lynch Ubu Night
        • Kafka Ubu Night
        • Tango Ubu Night
        • Ubu Ubu Night
        • Lovecraft Ubu Night
    • Canterbury Tales
    • The Soldier's Tale
    • Bluebeard's Castle >
      • Bluebeard's Castle credits
    • I Sing the Body Electric
    • Big Heads Protest
    • Hereafter
    • Passion, Pulse and Power
    • The Earthquake in Chile
    • Don Giovanni Invites you to Dinner
    • Doctor Faustus
    • The Marvellous Corricks >
      • Corricks - Credits
    • Distraction Camp
    • Remake
    • Ella and Susn
    • There and Back Again
    • Faust Chroma
    • Enigma Emmy Goering/Nico Sphinx of Ice
    • Change Proposal
    • Faust Feast
    • Diana Down Under
    • Philoctetes >
      • Production Credits - Piloctetes
    • Fantasia
    • Christmas Shopping
    • Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
    • Achternbusch in the Antipodes
    • Caucasian Chalk Circle
    • Samson Airline
    • Antigone
    • Kabarett Kabul
    • Footprints/Tapuwae
    • The Well Intentioned Wife
    • The Last Days of Mankind
    • Bakkhai / Diotek
    • Krapp's Last Tape
    • Murderer Hope of Women / The Philosopher's Stone
    • Comrade Savage
    • Love on a Bicycle
    • Crusoe: A Lapsarian Mass in Twelve Movements
    • Medea
    • Songs to the Judges
    • Resolution Island
    • Oedipus Rex/Oedipus at Colonus
    • The Empire Builders
    • States of Shock
    • Robinson Crusoe or: I That Was Born To Be My Own Destroyer
    • Power
    • MedeaMaterial
    • Salome
    • Electra
    • The Girl Who Sings Waterfalls
    • Hamletmachine
    • Oresteia
    • A Respectable Wedding
    • Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
    • Cloudkiwiland
    • Double Act / Postponeless >
      • double act credits
    • Preversions
    • The Mortal Pleasure of Wander Lust
    • Red Cross & Takeaway
    • Lulu
    • Cowboy Mouth
    • The Meeting >
      • the meeting credits
    • Action / Tongues
    • The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
    • A Letter from L
    • Dinosaurs and All the Rubbish / The Hunting of the Snark
    • Free Theatre Christmas Show
    • The Ride Across Lake Constance
    • Electra
    • In Three Minds
    • The Rapist Over Suzannah
    • 1984: The Future Is Now
    • Make-up Ground down / Texts for Decomposition
    • Leonce and Lena
    • Court Case: Free Theatre vs The Arts Centre
    • The Almost Free Theatre Kabernette
    • The Joffongract
    • King Lear
    • Kabarett
    • King Ubu
    • Black Cat Cabaret
    • The Gas Heart/Ox on the Roof/The Mirror Wardrobe One Fine Evening
    • Jazz Cellar Dada / Heavy Metal Cabaret
    • Round Dance
    • Woyzeck
  • Te Puna Toi
    • Past Te Puna Toi Projects
    • Artists in Residence
  • SUPPORT
  • CONTACT
  • CNZ application