Aucklanders' rates have given a $46 million boost to 10 rescue, safety, arts and cultural groups in the past four years and a further $14 million gift is proposed for the 2013-14 year.

Jerome Bel's The Show Must Go On is not so much a dance show as a show about dance. Its conventions, constructions, its expected forms, are mostly stripped away.

When Douglas Wright sets his stage with a big grey wall, it's a wall with an enigmatic, palpable life of its own.

Russell Baillie reviews the first night of Australian singer-songwriter Paul Kelly's Auckland Arts Festival season.

Rajendra Prasanna comes from generations of Indian master musicians. On Tuesday, thanks to him and his three colleagues, a rapt audience fell under the spell of a music in which time itself seemed almost to stand still.

The 42 Indian musicians of The Manganiyar Seduction work their wiles in the glare of red and light-bulbs, piled up in a grid inspired by Amsterdam's red-light district.

Martha Wainwright describes her look as "ageless" - she is poised on the stage dressed like a school-girl with hair all wispy like her grandmother's.

Maguy Marin's landmark work, celebrating 30 feted years of continuous performance, begins with the sculptured forms of its ten dancers, posed in dusty alabaster-like desertion.