Wellington Fringe 2026

Shift of Tides

Karolina Gorton and Pipi-Ayesha Evans

Genre: Dance, Dance and Movement Theatre

Venue: Graphic Comics, Cuba Street

Festival: Wellington Fringe

Low Down

Review

It’s well past 9pm on a Saturday night, when most sensible people are tucked up, away from the seemingly ever-present gale that is a feature of this Wellington “summer”, or cradling a drink in one of the many clubs, bars and restaurants that line the city’s iconic Cuba Street.

So why is a cohort of (mainly) grey-haired and sensibly attired adults of, ‘erm, a certain vintage gathering outside number 105, home to Graphic, its twin display windows stripped of anything but white drapes, concealing whatever lies within?  Turns out we’re here for Shift of Tides which, having recently debuted in Whakatū/Nelson has hopped across the Cook Strait for its Wellington Fringe premiere.

Performed in the tight confines of two shop windows, this engagingly different work is an amalgam of dance, dance theatre, physical theatre, movement, ritual and poetic imagery as it explores the cycles of loss, renewal, and transformation that shape the human experience.

Brainchild of choreographer, director and performer Karolina Gorton, this fifty-minute show also features the Pipi-Ayesha Evans in a performance that encourages the audience to stop, to watch, to think and to reflect, perhaps on the vicissitudes of life, its contrasts, on how easy it is to lose touch with reality.  Ever stood on a beach, getting lost in thoughts as you watch the tide ebb and flow, the sand shifting beneath your feet?  Well, the performers’ movement and expression is very redolent of this feeling.

Part series of movement solos, part choreographed duets, the focus moves seamlessly from one to the other, the performer upright and active, the other crouched motionless to avoid distracting the audience.  When operating in tandem, they mirror each other’s movements to perfection, creating a synchronicity that’s a performance in itself.

The movement has been tightly (and exquisitely) choreographed.  It needed to be, given that each performer was operating for around forty of the fifty minutes in a cube measuring about 1.5 metres (width) by 1 metre (depth) by 2.5 metres (height).  That doesn’t leave a lot of room for flashing footwork but instead necessitates using every other part of the body to create movement that communicates, telling the story that Gorton has so carefully devised.  There’s a brief decamp from the shop windows, allowing the performers to break the fourth wall and move carefully amongst the increasingly curious audience before they retreat behind glass, neatly swapping windows in the process.

It’s intriguing stuff, performed to a creative soundtrack featuring a variety of vocal/instrumental tracks, that slowly draws its audience into the story web.  Well, that part of the audience committed to finding out why two dancers clad in white were dancing in a shop window on a Saturday night that is.

Because that was the other intriguing part of the show – the audience.  It was either static and hooked or pausing and curious.  Some of the latter converted to the former.  Some of the former lost interest and moved on.

Some people, however, were just passing through.  Literally.  Walking glued to their smartphones, they suddenly found themselves silhouetted against a backdrop of brightly lit dancers in a shop window.  Hearing laughter, they look up, finding their gaze returned by a hundred pairs of eyes, wondering if this was all some clever comic twist in proceedings.

Street performers can’t legislate for what the good old public will add in terms of extempore performance but this was a bonus (and funny) twist to a show that dared to be different.  Different in concept, different in execution, different in staging.  Thought provoking too.   But did it work?  Who knows.  Typically Fringe.  Typically Wellington.

Published February 16, 2026 by Tim Wilcock