Dunedin Fringe Awards 2022

The Dunedin Fringe Festival closed its season with an Awards Party on Sunday 27th March to celebrate another phenomenal 11 days of arts taking place across the city and online. The evening was hosted by local comedy stars Reuben Crisp and Marea Colombo, with entertainment from Jojo Bellini.

Festival Director, Gareth McMillan, used his speech to acknowledge the wide range of support the festival receives from organisations, individuals, and creative practitioners. ‘Our brave, innovative artists showed enormous courage going ahead in the face of extreme adversity but I also tautoko those who made the decision to not proceed this year. The Fringe network is committed to playing a significant role in rebuilding the sector after two years of major disruption.’

This year’s Phil Davison Special Contribution To Festival Life Award went to Ellie Swann and the team at the New Athenaeum Theatre. The NAT is a valued venue for Dunedin Fringe artists and this year signed up to host 13 shows, welcoming all the creatives involved into the NAT family.

Five shows were awarded the Fringe Awards for Excellence. The first, sponsored by Gordon Harris The Art and Graphic Store, was awarded for community participation through visual art to Pink by the Otago Arts Society.

The other awards for excellence were sponsored by Dunedin Fringe and were awarded to Promenade by Gasp! Dance Inclusive for community participation through dance; The Barden Party; Te Radar’s Intoxicana and The Renegade Cabaret.

The Outstanding Design Award, sponsored by Southern Lights and Sounds Limited, went to inclusive cabaret troupe The Haberdashery and the award for Outstanding Technical Achievement, sponsored by Strawberry Sound went to Cargo Bike Art Space: Creature Post for their tentacled projections around the city.

The Dunedin City of Literature 'Beyond Words' Award was awarded to Imagined World’s Storytelling which held two events in this year’s programme: Toby or Not To Be: Stories of Death and Dying and Mary Bumby’s Hive of Storytelling.

The Dunedin Fringe works closely with sister Fringe Festivals in Wellington and Auckland and with their support offer two touring awards to help artists to take their shows to other Fringe Festivals in Aotearoa New Zealand. The winner of the Auckland Fringe Touring Award was My Grandfather is a Canoe, a play by first-time playwright Faumuina Felolini Maria Tafuna’i based on her poetry collection by the same name. The winner of the NZ Fringe Award was comedy play Gaslight Me which rapidly sold out its season in Dunedin.

For the first time, the Fringe awarded the Most Promising Pacific Artist Award sponsored by Creative New Zealand, with the inaugural award going to Tui Vutu whose audio-visual piece Dolphins and Pearls featured in the Blue Oyster Performance Series.

The People’s Choice Award, awarded by public vote for the best Black Box or public performance, went to Cocklefinger.

A number of acts received honourable mentions, including Sea Shanties and Salty Stories, Chris Priestly and the Unsung Heroes, The Shit Kid, Rough Night, The Pantybaggers Reading Parlour, Agents Provocateurs and Spectacle Presents: Disturbance.

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