JAMBALAYA REVIEW: UHN-DA-CHA-CHA, UHN-DA-CHA-CHA...
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Advertised as being ‘a truly unique cultural experience for Auckland’s festival-goers’, Jambalaya truly delivers on its premise by providing local urbanites a slice of something more exotic.
Upon entering Corban Estate Arts Centre, one is plunged straight into a kaleidoscope of warm neon lighting and dulcet acoustic chords, with live performances and workshops littering the vast space.
From Burlesque to Swing, Rap to Reggae, Zouk to Bellydancing; there’s really something in the eclectic mix for anyone the least bit culturally inclined.
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My personal experience with the festival was confined to its nightlife, and the glorious music it boasted! The ‘Mainz Stage’ from 9pm onwards saw Zoh Zoh, LatinAotearoa and AHoriBuzz coaxing those on the expansive dance-floor into a wild jitter – I’ve never seen such feverish enthusiasm!
Plenty of ‘d-floor’ patrons seemed to be reliving their ‘flower-child’ glory days - having darned explosively colourful attire, they rhythmically proceeded to flail limbs with abandon. The music itself was genre-defying, they respectively representing different blends of Reggae, Latin, Funk and Roots. AHoriBuzz, in particular, came across as talented musicians simply jamming on-stage and were reminiscent of such fusion-bands as NZ’s Eru Dangerspiel and Fly My Pretties.
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The festival’s impressive light-installations helped to colour the night further, as did the performances that organically emerged amongst them - a particular staged fight within a fluorescently lit ‘GameBoy’ sculpture jumps to mind. The sheer novelty of seeing such unorthodox, creative theatrics kept me glued to their performance for an unreasonable amount of time.
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Education, too, was provided by various courses in cultural immersion throughout the day, not to mention the huge number of musical workshops held in the Music Tent. I even stumbled across 4 ‘human statues’, each representing a culture unique to certain Pacific Islands, who would sporadically burst into nation-specific dances.
Just around the corner were the Ukuladies, closely followed by the Sing-for-joy choir, who would blat out ‘Uke-ified’ - and then a-cappella - renditions of today’s hits. This artistic myriad of talent went down a treat when accompanied by one of Jambalaya’s brilliantly diverse range of (nicely affordable) cocktails.
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It’s magical, really. Jambalaya succeeds in delivering us a few days of tropical escapism, and considering its talent line-up, at a good rate. It’s a festival that deserves funding, and that deserves the populus’ attention – I can’t think of a better way to spend a long weekend.
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