The Living Lounge is a space dedicated to the suave, the saucy, the serene and the surreal!!!!! Come and experience our changing landscape………

By day Living Lounge is a workshop space, where you can stretch your limbs with yoga, centre yourself with chi gong, learn to play tai-ko drums, make and play traditional maori instruments, spin some rhymes, unwrap your inner rap slamming artist, hula with Hoopla! and battle it out with some hip hop with the crew from Torotoro, not to mention the inaugral capoeira stylin’.  Friday eve is the time for sculpture vultures to circle and swoop upon the outstanding artistry of Splore’s lore-worthy Art Trail guided Lord of the Lore, Bruce Hopkins.

By night the Living Lounge transforms into a late-night and luscious ‘caverne rouge’, ripe to bursting with sauntering, sexy shananagins.

Friday night boasts a stunning line-up, beginning with the jazz heroes Dan Sperber Complex (of Loungehead fame) and the award winning Sam Wills performing his hilarious ‘Boy with Tape on his Mouth’. From this silent comic genius to the full-surround sound of the Poetry Slam, DefJam Poet Ishle kickstarts the verbal velocity. So sign up to roll some rhymes, lick some lyrics and spin some superlatives or come watch the participants sweat it out, suck it up and spit it out before the mystery judges!  There will be an audience vote, so come and give us a piece of your mind! Live performances by Ishle, Unscene and Penny Ashton as her Hotpink self, will keep us sane (or insane) between the punters’ phat philanderings!!

As the poetry peters off the music begins with the awe-inspiring voice of Josephine Costain, and GhostyHead (a hot new band from the Tits of Rangi!) Backlit dancers  before Labretta and the Motel Six swing some boogie and steal the show with that sizzling sex-kitten purrr-ing into the melting mic!!  If you wanna dance some more the Hootie Buzzes will casio-tone you into a dance frenzy, with a unique blend of retro, sax and keys. Then melt it down and mellow it out with singer/songwriters Kiri Eriwata and Megan Franich, to ease into your snooze zone by 3am – tired but ohh so satisfied!!!!

And if you thought Friday night was just too exciting –  here comes Saturday night to kick it in the pants! May we introduce the one and only ‘BUTTERFLY ZOO’, a unique-to-Splore, legend-in-the-making experience where the clientele creates the ambiance, the cocktails fan the fire and the entertainment (dahling!) is second to none! 

Created by Robin Rawstorne, Wilhemeena Gordon and Lady Em

Click here for Butterfly Zoo
 

Labretta Suede and The Motel 6 are a bunch of crazied Rock 'n' Rollers with a wreckless set and a show of music and outfits you could just LICK! With a 50's rock'n'roll influence, a twang and some dirge, Labretta Suede and The Motel 6 are an ass whippin', high kickin', low down rockin' an-a-reelin' high-class outfit.

Labretta came back from her tour of the States and head hunted her purrr-fect band line up:
- Chris Bumbo Jr on Drums,
- JayL on Bass
- Johnny Moondog on Guitar.

Two songs, 'Boogaloo' and 'No Good Man', reached number 5 in highly contested weeks up against bands like the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs on student radio BFM. 'Holler' made it to number 1 on the Kiwi FM top ten, taking the number 1 slot for 5 weeks. 'Hold On' is currently on play list on both BFM and Kiwi FM.

This band is renowned for their numerous and on-going unusual performances, from glorious off the rail roof top shows, Roller Derby mania, to Hotrod and motorcycle events. This band lives to indulge its ever-growing fan base and will be touring through the summer and off to Australia again in March.

With a deluxe 7" in the pipeline – keep your eyes peeled for that!

www.labrettasuedeandthemotelsix

Since abandoning a career in ballet due to a pesky need to eat, Penny Ashton is fast making a name for herself as a global poet and comedienne. She has performed in numerous NZ Festivals and has travelled to the Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringe Festivals and completed a tour of Canadian Fringes in 2007. Her Hot Pink Festival persona has been a critical and commercial success and has prompted invites to perform in Singapore, London, Australia, Germany, USA, Canada and Scotland.  In 2006 Penny also represented New Zealand in The World Cup of Theatresports in Germany and twice toured the performance poetry circuit in the UK including one where she represented Australasia in the Four Continents Slam UK Poetry Tour in December 2006.

Auckland based singer songwriter Josephine Costain has been singing all her life and began performing publicly at the age of nine.
Formerly the lead singer in the band Ishta, Josephine Costain’s voice has been described as “heavenly, soulful and sensual” (Graham Reid NZ Herald).
She has collaborated with a number of electronic producers (Epsilon Blue, Shinya Assakura – Kenui Music, Russel Walder, and Tomachi aka Tom Atkinson) as well as many musicians.

www.myspace.com/josephinecostain

Torotoro fuse Haka and Pasifik styles with Urban Street moves..Come and experience our unique,dynamic dance style guaranteed to leave you energised! Come sweat it, come shake it!!
 

Born and raised in the Art Deco capital of the world, sunny Napier in New Zealand, Megan Franich has been creative from an early age.  Poetry and Art conceded priority to Music in her teen years as she learned her first chords on some Faraday Street porch steps.  Nurtured on a diet of the Pixies, Lou Barlow and PJ Harvey she quickly developed her own unique style.  Megan produced and hosted her own music television show 'Spoiled Rotten' on Alt TV for a year and a half but is now focusing on her own music.  Splore will be her last gig before she heads overseas on tour.

www.myspace.com/meganfranich

Hailing from the slums and ghettos of Auckland (the Prague of the South), The Benka Boradovsky Bordello band is a highly theatrical musical group specialising in music of Eastern European, Gypsy and Jewish flavour, along with some Western European influences. With music ranging from old to new, originals to standards, vocal to instrumental; they are remarkable in their ability to get everyone up and dancing, regardless of age, musical taste, or level of drunkenness. Benka's globetrotting voice sings in a wide variety of languages, with lyrics in Russian, Greek, Serbian, Romani, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, English and more. If references are necessary, they sound like Tom Waits, Shane McGowan and Franz Kafka drunk too much vodka and thought they were in 1950's Yugoslavia.
The sensational Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band are touring New Zealand in January/February to promote their new ep, Danse Macabre. Accompanying them on the ‘Gypsy Fever’ tour is DJ Balkanetic, well known for his rousing sets of Gypsy-floor/Balkan dance music
DJ Balkanetic has been entertaining audiences at festivals, parties and weddings around New Zealand with a highly infectious, uplifting blend of Balkan beats, Klezmer, Romani/Gypsy music and organic global grooves.

        

Ishle Park, from NYC is a member of Def Poetry Jam  will lead a  Poetry Slam and recite her amazing poems/songs. Ishle Yi Park is the first woman to become Poet Laureate of Queens, New York. She has performed her unique blend of poetry & song across the United States, Cuba, New Zealand, Singapore, and Korea.

GhostyHead is a lyrical dub funk six-piece band from Auckland. Collectively they have 460 years performance time accredited to them. They swear by blood oath to deliver nothing but an exquisite musical experience that will shake your bones and unhinge your soul.

At the forefront of innovative New Zealand dance, BackLit Productions is a vibrant and energetic contemporary dance company. Their performances are emotionally stimulating, humorous, diverse, at times dark and always thought-provoking. BackLit Productions have spent the last two years scheming and plotting fantastical creations, which have been performed at various events including the Auckland Tempo dance festival and Wellington Fringe. BackLit have also collaborated with a number of New Zealand artists and musicians such as Sideroom and composer Clair Cowan. 

For Splore 08 BackLit Productions brings you a powerful interlude of dance featuring six female performers and music mixed live by Charlie Gao.

www.myspace.com/backlitproductions_ltd

The Hoolie Buzzes are here! Back from a long hiatus, the legendary, dynamic duo of late-night busking and all-night party rocking – direct from inner suburbia, Auckland, NZ – the H.B sensations are running hot, better than ever, and ready to knock you out with their unique brand of good-time music. Built up around the percussive mayhem, casiotronics, shimmering horns and comedic awesomeness of Richard Foulkes Junior and Ben Holmes, The H.Bs play an original blend of afro-bossa, lo-fi-disco punk, rando-jazz with toasting and anthems. Its good-time music with an experimental, cut-price performance-art twist, its white heat, it is the long awaited return of The Hoolie Buzzes. 

Learn to put it on paper, roll it up, spit it out and slide on down the lyrical lusciousness that is spoken word poetry. Poetry workshop with Penny Ashton from 4-6pm on Friday

Then test your skills at the Spoken Word Slam from 8.30-10pm Friday night, where 10 lucky participants will sweat it out before the super-star guest judges (King Kapisi, Legal Money Mike (Unscene), and Penny Ashton)

Sign yourself up at the Living Lounge during Dan Sperber's set from 7.30pm, first 10 registered are in!!

         

Paul y Paul has been bringing his unique style of live entertainment to audiences all over the world for the last 8 years, combining circus, comedy, audience interraction and music to bring you an unforgettable live show experience. A favourite of SPLORE audiences for many years, be there for Pauly's brand new show!

Tests of intelligence and courage lead to costume changes in the grand tradition. Then ... disguised as the great Rudolph Nearenough ... he leaps into the grand climax and the audience find themselves in the ballet.

A 20 minute emersive magical experience, the journey begins on the water.....            by VIVID ad SENSORIE. take off around 22.30 saturday night!