Around the track at Frank Kitt’s Park with cancer survivors and caregivers

Relay for Life is an amazing event, with an incredibly loving, giving, and celebratory atmosphere. We were really honoured to have been asked to take part, and to lead the cancer survivors and their caregivers around the track for the first lap of the 24-hour relay.

From the Relay for Life website:

Relay For Life is an inspiring community event that gives everyone a chance to celebrate cancer survivors and caregivers; remember loved ones lost to cancer; and fight back by raising awareness and funds to support the work of the Cancer Society. Relay For Life is for people of all ages and fitness levels. Anyone can take part!

Team members walk and jog through the night, symbolising the fact that cancer never sleeps. However, people taking part may come and go as they like.

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Batucada on the beach

Our Brazilian friends had set up a Footvolley Championship on the beach at Oriental Bay, and asked us if we’d come and play to open the competition. We were delighted to do so.

We gathered at the beachside on Oriental Parade and watched the footvolley teams warming up and going through their paces. It’s such a skilled sport, requiring some serious foot-eye co-ordination, very fast and athletic. It’s fascinating to watch.

Then it was our turn to provide some early afternoon entertainment before the tournament matches began. It’s surprisingly hard to do our choreographed stepping on sand, but in such a beautiful setting, and on such a gorgeous day, with a lineup of footvolley players very keen and eager to be our dancers for the afternoon, it was a pleasure: Continue reading

One of the best gigs of the year – for sure!

The Newtown Fair is always awesome to be a part of. It’s vibrant, noisy, multicultural, jam-packed, and has the maddest, most celebratory atmosphere you can imagine.

This year, for some reason, that jam-packed madness was multiplied 10-fold, and we had one of the best parades I think we’ve EVER done.

We were planning to parade down the full length of the Fair in one direction, and then turn around and parade all the way back again in the other direction. Based on previous experience, we estimated it would take us between 30 minutes and an hour.

Boy, were we wrong this year.

It took us an hour and a half to get most of the way through the Fair in one direction – and we didn’t even attempt to turn round and go back the other way, there were just too many people!

It was quite, quite, mad. At times we’d be standing still, playing, rather than parading and playing, because the sheer number of people dancing in front of us (into the hundreds) meant we couldn’t go anywhere!

Completely brilliant. At the end we said a noisy (and rhythmic) farewell to Ang, who’s heading off back home to Ireland. We’ll miss you!

What a wonderful day.

Newtown Festival, Wellington 2013 – video by Benjamin Humphrey