Things to do in Auckland this weekend

Contemporary dance pioneer and founding artistic director of Black Grace, Neil Ieremia, is planning two major events for this Saturday and next week. Photo / Jinki Cambronero
Wondering what’s on this weekend? There are exhibitions on taonga Māori and the history of netball, a performance from pioneering dance company Black Grace to enjoy, plus plenty to plan ahead for.
This weekend, people across the world are celebrating the Moon Festival. In China, it’s a mid-autumn festival with roots in the autumn harvest and, while it’s more cherry blossoms and hay fever season down here, it’s never a bad time to celebrate spending time with family, which you can do at The Auckland Moon Festival at Potters Park.
Also on offer this weekend are two new exhibitions, one at Auckland Museum about netball in Aotearoa, and another at Auckland Central Library in honour of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. You can spend an evening with Black Grace’s Neil Ieremia or get yourself to the sunny Coromandel for the Whitianga Ocean’s Festival. Plus, the week ahead is abundant with the arts from NZ Opera, Auckland Fringe Festival, Auckland Philharmonia and a Celebrity Designer Wardrobe Sale for a good cause.
Any competent foodie knows Dominion Rd is the place to go for the best Asian eating in Tāmaki Makaurau, especially of the noodle and dumpling variety, which is why it’s the perfect locale for this weekend’s Moon Festival. Taking over Potters Park from Friday to Sunday, the Moon Festival has more than 70 market stalls, loads of food vendors, a live performance stage, carnival rides, lion and dragon dances, a Chinese Hanfu costume parade, mooncake-making demonstrations and a lantern exhibition. If you’re looking for a way to entertain your kids this weekend, the Auckland Moon Festival is our top pick for whānau-friendly entertainment. Parking will be limited so catch public transport, carpool, walk or ride your bike if you can and savour some mooncakes with your family and friends.
When: September 14, 2pm-10pm; September 15, 2pm-9pm.
Where: Potters Park, corner Dominion and Balmoral roads, Balmoral, Auckland.
Price: Free entry.
On Saturday night, contemporary dance pioneer Neil Ieremia is hosting a unique and personal event called Words & Wine. The founding artistic director of Black Grace will share choreography, his writing, paintings and musings on the creative process at the Herald Theatre. It will be an intimate event where you can enjoy a selection of wines from Marlborough winery The Ned while getting insights into one of Aotearoa’s greatest creative minds. For a double dose of contemporary dance, book tickets to Black Grace’s Company B show, The Next Wave, which opens on Wednesday. Company B is Ieremia’s offering to the next generation of dancers and dance enthusiasts. It’s a mentor-style programme where aspiring dancers are guided by and work alongside established Black Grace dancers and emerging choreographers. Together these two Black Grace events reflect on the company’s past and look forward to the future of dance in Aotearoa and the legacy Black Grace is creating.
Words & Wine
When: September 14, 8pm.
Where: Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland Central.
Price: Tickets $100 + booking fees from ticketmaster.co.nz including two glasses of The Ned wine.
Company B
When: September 18-22.
Where: Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland Central.
Price: Tickets start at $35 + booking fees from ticketmaster.co.nz, Pay What You Choose performance on September 21.
Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori starts on Saturday, an annual reminder to take some time to think about, learn and appreciate the language and culture of this nation’s first people. One way to do that is to visit Waiwaia Ngā Ngutu, a free exhibition at Auckland Central City Library that showcases a collection of fascinating taonga Māori that are being displayed publicly for the first time. The exhibit has a particular interest in the history of written te reo Māori and includes pieces such as hand-written manuscripts, Māori students’ copybooks, early Māori grammar books and bibles, as well as pūrākau (legends) and whakatauki (proverbs). There are also audio recordings of our environment and the many different Māori dialects. Separate to the exhibition, the library has a giant copy of How Māui Slowed the Sun for children to read and interact with and, when you head into the town, you’ll see celebrations of Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori across the city centre including neon kupu (words) on Lorne St.
When: Until February 1, 2025.
Where: Auckland Central City Library, Lorne St, Auckland Central.
Price: Free.
This year marks 100 years of Netball New Zealand, making ours the oldest netball association in the world – a meaningful title to hold, especially for women in sport in Aotearoa. The game that most Kiwi girls – and many boys too – spent their school years playing is being celebrated in a new exhibition at Auckland Museum, Our Game: A Century of Netball in Aotearoa New Zealand. The exhibit recognises the role netball has played in New Zealand’s culture and history and includes photographs, memorabilia, archival footage, and personal stories from the world of netball. Many New Zealanders have spent countless volunteer hours supporting the sport through clubs and schools across the country and Our Game highlights how impactful all that community mahi and spirit has been for girls, women and New Zealand. As netball season draws to a close, Our Game could be a great place for your team’s end-of-season celebrations.
When: Until February 18, 2025.
Where: Te Taunga Community Hub, Grand Foyer, Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland Museum, Auckland Domain, Parnell, Auckland.
Price: Free with museum entry, which is free for Auckland residents.
Anyone in the vicinity of Whitianga this Saturday can either go to Whitianga Ocean’s Festival or have a severe case of FOMO. The day is packed with live entertainment including from the Jordan Luck Band, Vegas Brown Band, Let’s Go Descarrego, The Monroes, Hands Off, Scotty Stone and more. At its heart, the Ocean’s Festival is a food and wine event so you’ll be treated to some exceptional local kai, including plenty of regional seafood, and a wide selection of wineries and breweries serving up their finest. Kids are welcome though they might cramp your style as the festival is geared towards adults. This not-so-little event is ringing in the new spring/summer season of outdoor festivals and that makes us very excited. We’re sorry if you can’t get there on short notice, it’s definitely going to be a vibe.
When: September 14, 10am-5pm.
Where: The Esplanade, Whitianga.
Price: Tickets $70 + booking fees from oceansfestival.co.nz
You may be unaware but we’re currently in Second Hand September, an initiative originally spearheaded by Oxfam, and to celebrate the Designer Wardrobe is hosting The Celebrity Designer Wardrobe Sale starting on Monday. The nation’s biggest online marketplace for second-hand fashion will be selling special pieces from the wardrobes of some of our most stylish celebrities including Kaylee Bell, Hilary Barry, Toni Street, Morgana O’Reilly, Diamond Langi and Sarah Stuart. All the proceeds from the sale will go to the charity Dress for Success Auckland, which works to support women in Tāmaki Makaurau with professional attire and development tools. The Designer Wardrobe is also donating $1 for every 10 listings added to the website during the event. It’s all completely online so you can support women in need, buy yourselves some new designer duds, sell some of those beloved but no longer needed pieces from your own wardrobe, all from your couch. It’s good for the environment, good for your wallet and good for the community at large.
When: September 16-30.
Where: Visit designerwardrobe.co.nz
The Planetarium is always a perspective-shifting experience and next week it is adding to the drama of it all with Strings Under the Stars, a live music experience within the domed cinema. A collaboration between the Auckland Philharmonia and the Stardome Observatory and Planetarium, Thursday to Saturday for the next two weeks you can see a planetarium show, designed specifically to the music of Holst’s The Planets and a new composition by New Zealander Kirsten Strom. Four talented Auckland Philharmonia musicians – Miranda Adams (violin), Charmian Keay (violin), Ben Harrison (viola) and Ashley Brown (cello) – will perform the music live in the dome, creating an immersive musical and visual experience. We can’t help but think this would make for a great date.
When: September 19-21 and 26-28, 7pm and 8.30pm.
Where: Stardome Observatory and Planetarium, One Tree Hill Domain, Manukau Rd, Epsom.
Price: Tickets $30 adult, $25 student/senior from stardome.org.nz
We’re rolling into the final week of the Auckland Fringe Festival and it may just have saved the best for last with this one. Prowl is a street dance theatre production, choreographed by Hayley Walters-Tekahika, the director of Prowl Productions, along with the company’s talented dancers. The show explores femininity and everything that can mean through street dance, spoken word and song. Emerging as the company at the forefront of street dance, especially waacking, in Aotearoa, Prowl Productions has recently completed successful shows at Auckland Pride Festival, Projekt Feel Good, Bad Apple Gay and at the Pacific Dance Festival. It’s a celebration of the fluidity of gender, in particular within the communities of colour these dancers belong to, and really great dancing.
When: September 17-20.
Where: Basement Theatre, Lower Greys Ave, Auckland Central.
Price: Tickets $18-$28 from basementtheatre.co.nz
You don’t have to be an opera fanatic to be familiar with the music of Verdi’s Rigoletto – you may not know it by name but La Donna e Mobile is an opera classic almost everyone can hum along to. For that reason alone, the NZ Opera season of Rigoletto is the perfect production for anyone from the opera newbie to the most seasoned opera aficionado. The show, which opens on Thursday, features the incredibly talented Australian baritone James Clayton in the role of Rigoletto and our own Amitai Pati (Sol3 Mio) home from Europe to play the role of the Duke of Mantua. The tragic heroine, Gilda, is played by internationally renowned soprano Elena Perroni. By special arrangement with Opera Australia, NZ Opera is staging Elijah Moshinsky’s reimagining of Rigoletto, inspired by the Fellini film La Dolce Vita, complete with 1950s Italian costumes and a revolving two-storey dollhouse set. It’s going to be a stunning, not-to-be-missed production both visually and aurally.
When: September 19, 21 and 25, 7.30pm.
Where: Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland Central.
Price: Tickets start at $25 from ticketmaster.co.nz