Binge Culture Space Project

Vision for the space

A base and testing ground for bold new performance in Wellington

Wellington has a vibrant contemporary performing arts scene, but it is not always visible. Plays, dance pieces, and interactive works are pieced together in lounges, cafes, and spaces-for-hire across the city. This unstable arrangement holds artists back from our full potential. A space for Binge Culture would anchor and support artists making world-class theatre and performance in Wellington.

Binge Culture has been creating new-form theatre and performance for nine years. In 2017, we were shortlisted for a prestigious Total Theatre Award at Edinburgh Fringe, for ‘Innovation, Experimentation, and Playing with Form’. Our participatory show ‘Whales’, in which the public rescue a stranded pod, has been performed in centres around the country and was awarded ‘Best in Fringe’ at NZ Fringe 2013. NZ Herald has called us ‘one of the country’s most exciting, direct and original theatre companies’. We make work that is humorous, political, and which strives to engage the audience in new ways.

There are more than 10 artists working in Binge Culture on a regular basis, and we have collaborated with hundreds of people from across Aotearoa over the years. During this time we have found the most fruitful making periods have occurred when we have had access to consistent and flexible spaces to develop work in.

We wish to create a space where new performance can both be developed and workshopped with in-house audiences, without the accompanying constraints of shared space and week-long presentation slots. The model of brick and mortar independent theatre companies has all but disappeared from NZ. This has contributed to, for example, fractured and shortened development periods for new work. Rigorous development of ideas is not possible when concepts must be committed to without first being tested.


The impact the space will have on our practice and for other contemporary performance artists:

For Binge Culture
  • Sustained making periods, better work - a sole occupancy making space will allow for uninterrupted sustained periods of creative focus and better outcomes.
  • Energy into creativity, not space-hunting - securing space for rehearsals, workshops, and presentations on an ongoing basis is a big drain on time and resources. With a space to rely on, we can relieve ourselves of that considerable mental load.
  • Stability - having a home base, and the security of knowing it will be there on a day-to-day basis, removes many of the barriers and difficulties for us to create work. For example, props can be stored, creative material left on site, and there’s always somewhere to meet for a catch-up.
  • Agility - with our own space, we'll be more light on our feet and responsive to opportunities; for example, an invitation to create and present at short notice.

For the Wellington community
  • A place for hosting out-of-town talent - a flexible space will allow for hosting of artists from around the country and overseas to rehearse while visiting the city. We’ll be able to be more responsive to the needs of artists than a bigger, busier venue, and we’ll be able to connect them with an audience through our networks.  The local community benefits from fresh ideas and new connections, and generates goodwill across artistic centres.
  • A resource for the contemporary performance community - we’ll offer the space for use by others, to make maximum use of this resource. We anticipate a model of several resident companies, who will share the rehearsal space, as well as offering casual bookings for the community and an open-access contemporary performance hub space. We’ll look at regular in-house presentations of riskier, work-in-progress material, (‘scratch night’ model) for artists to experiment with form and build their practice. The space will foster a new professional culture of making work.​


How this space benefits our creative capital city status:

  • Visibility for our hard-working artists - anchoring for independent contemporary performing artists, drawing attention to the vibrancy of the contemporary performance scene by giving it a public-facing presence.
  • Better art, presented to the world - more rigorous practice leads to higher quality work. Many household name artists have their background in experimental and fringe performance - those pushing the limits bring what they discover into the mainstream (ie, Flight of the Conchords). We can strengthen Wellington’s reputation as a place where this happens.
  • A shared artist-led resource - giving artists more reasons to make and/or present work in Wellington
  • A hub for creative collaboration - which benefits the wider creative ecology. Spaces like this one facilitate cross-pollination of ideas among contemporary performance art forms such as dance, theatre, performance art together. Often, those working at the fringes of these forms have more in common with each other than with those in the mainstream of their own tradition - here, labels are not particularly useful!
  • Enlivening the neighbourhood, bringing people and creative energy to the area around the location.
  • A welcoming space for anyone interested in contemporary performance without the ‘baggage’ and preconceptions of traditional theatres.


Binge Culture's networks:

Below is a list of some of the incredible artists from NZ and around the world we already have a relationship with. Many of these people have already expressed an interest in utilising this space, on an ongoing or temporary basis.
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'Break Up' at LaMaMa Experimental Theatre Club, New York 2015
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Backstage of 'The Joy Booth' Performance Arcade, 2014
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'For Your Future Guidance'
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'A Trial' BATS Theatre 2016
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A scratch night in the bar of Bats-Out-of-Site
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'The Joy Booth' Performance Arcade 2014
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'Smells Like Xmas' at BATS Theatre 2016
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'This Rugged Beauty' Studio 77 2012