It is time to find out what will be entertaining, exciting, stimulating, getting us talking and inspiring us in Dunedin in 2026. Rebecca Fox has taken a look at how the arts calendar is shaping up for the coming year.
It might be the "off" year for many of the city’s festivals, but plenty is still happening in the Dunedin arts sphere this year.
There is a new festival in town for solo performers, Tahi Ōtepoti, a rare chance to see both the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Dunedin Symphony Orchestra performing on stage together as part of the DSO’s 60th anniversary, Shakespeare’s Macbeth reimagined as a contemporary ballet and one of the world’s leading exponents of flamenco performing - and that is just the beginning.
Festivals
New to the Dunedin line-up for 2026 is Tahi Ōtepoti in October. The Tahi New Zealand Festival of Solo Performance has been a popular two-yearly event in Wellington since 2019.
Brought to Dunedin by Tahi and the Dunedin Arts Festival, it has been programmed for a year in which there is no Dunedin Arts Festival.
Tahi festival director and founder Sally Richards says the festival gives wrap-around support to enable solo artists to take creative leaps and provides a platform for their work to be seen.
Expressions of interest are open to established and emerging Dunedin artists as well as those from further afield who would like to present a solo-performer theatre, dance or music show.
"We want to nurture bold new work, present fresh perspectives and highlight the rich diversity of solo performance in Ōtepoti and beyond."
The annual Dunedin Fringe Festival returns in March with its offerings of comedy, theatre, the visual artists, music, dance and everything in between.
This year is an Aspiring Conversations year in Wānaka, the event running from March 27-29. While the programme will not be announced until later this month, it has released one event - "Kiwi Country" with comedian and presenter Te Radar and writer and researcher Ruth Spencer.
Theatre
The theatre year starts with the annual Dunedin Summer Shakespeare but with a twist: "If Music Be The Food of Love: Shakespeare in Song".
The Bard’s words have been given to local musicians to present new songs in afternoon concerts at the botanic garden bandshell over Valentine’s Day weekend and will feature Ian Chapman (formerly Dr Glam), Nick Tipa with Alex Martyn, Marama Grant, Proper Rodger and more.
Dunedin actor and director Lara Macgregor will hit the boards for the first time in a while in Dunedin in a solo role as Australia’s first female prime minister in Julia by Joanna Murray-Smith.
Brought to New Zealand by Macgregor’s Birds of a Feather and Brave Theatre, and directed by Dunedin-born Mel Dodge, this production will be opening at Circa Theatre in Wellington in May, and then re-rehearse in Dunedin for an October opening.
After Macgregor’s short but successful season of Prima Facie in Dunedin last year, Arts On Tour (AOT) is bringing the New Zealand Theatre Company’s production of the play to the regions, including Oamaru, Arrowtown, Bannockburn, Te Anau and Hāwea. It is directed by Michael Hurst and performed by Cassandra Woodhouse. The play addresses issues of justice as a powerful criminal defence barrister finds herself on the other side and questioning the very system she has spent her life working in.
AOT is also bringing to the regions solo theatre comedy Social Animal with Stephen Papps in June and Penny Ashton’s twist on Shakespeare with the The Tempestuous in October.
For the children, KidzStuff Theatre is bringing comedian and mime Mr Fungus to the region.
Local theatre company Sahara BreeZe (SBZ) Productions has been busy since its last Dunedin production for the Fringe Festival, performing overseas and training as well as developing two new devised works, The Shadows Dance and Psy-clone.
Director Blaise Barham says it is working towards having both works ready to perform later this year.
"The Shadows Dance blends movement, clowning and puppetry to follow one person’s surreal confrontation with their inner shadows in a darkly funny and deeply moving exploration of mental health and hope. In Psy-clone, Black Mirror meets Punchdrunk - bodies, sound and light collide in a visceral new show exploring the future we’re hurtling towards," he said.
Hic Sunt Dracones is planning the South Island premiere of one-woman show Nicola Cheeseman is Back, by Kathryn Burnett and starring Dunedin’s Harriet Moir, later this year. It is the story of a 50-year-old mum with a failed marriage, stagnant career and memories of the woman she used to be, who restarts her old nouveau punk band, The Cherry Slits.
Some other local theatre offerings are being kept under wraps as they are being produced as part of the Fringe Festival, which does not release its programme until later this month.
Musical theatre
Southern-born producer Ben McDonald is bringing Menopause the Musical back. A hit back in the early 2000s, it is still touring the world today.
Four women bond over bras, hot flushes and mood swings all to music from the ’60s to the ’80s. The new New Zealand tour will hit Dunedin, Invercargill and Gore in March and April.
Classical music
The Dunedin Symphony Orchestra is celebrating its 60th anniversary, so for 2026 is putting the spotlight on the people who have helped shape the orchestra.
That includes Jack Speirs, one of the orchestra’s first musical directors, with his Fanfare, and principal guest conductor (1997-2006) Nicholas Braithwaite as well as performers who have performed with the orchestra throughout their careers, flutist Bridget Douglas, bass baritone Jonathan Lemalu and soprano Anna Leese. Pianist Michael Houstoun also makes a return.
In a first, the DSO will collaborate with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in May. Sitting side by side on stage, the two orchestras will perform Mahler’s Second Symphony Resurrection and Dunedin composer and composition lecturer Anthony Ritchie’s Fanfare Kotahitanga.
As it is also the 100th anniversary of the University of Otago’s School of Music, three instrument lecturers will perform Beethoven’s Triple Concerto as soloists, violinist Tessa Petersen (also the DSO’s concertmaster), cellist Heleen du Plessis (also the DSO’s principal cello) and pianist Terence Dennis.
The DSO will also perform two world premieres of Ritchie’s, one being his Cello Concerto with soloist Wellingtonian Inbal Megiddo.
There will also be two family concerts - Kiri and Lou, which reimagines the New Zealand children’s series for orchestra, and John Williams’ "Movie Magic", which features music from Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Harry Potter, among others.
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is finally returning concert levels in Otago to its pre-Covid-19 levels, bringing three performances.
On top of the collaboration with the DSO, it is performing "Serenade", featuring New Zealand conductor Tianyi Lu and as soloist NZSO principal cellist Andrew Joyce, in October in Dunedin, Oamaru and Queenstown, while it brings Beethoven 9, the grand finale of the NZSO’s mainstage season, conducted by Gemma New and featuring City Choir Dunedin, to the Dunedin Town Hall in November. The concert also features Dame Gillian Whitehead’s Hoata.
Chamber Music New Zealand has four shows booked in for Dunedin this year, beginning with the Phileo Quartet in July on their first tour of New Zealand. Drawn from the Vienna Philharmonic, the quartet will present a programme echoing the sound, style and traditions of the philharmonic.
In August, a group of international musicians dedicated to bringing the music of composer John Psathas to life will tour. The John Psathas Group of pianists Dawn Hardwick (London) and Stephen Gosling (New York) and percussionists Katarzyna Mycka (Essen) and Fabian Ziegler (Zurich) aim to present a programme that shapes a vision for the future of chamber music.
They will be followed later in the month by Dutch piano duo and brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen and at the end the year a visit by NZTrio with support from double bass Damien Eckersley and Alexander McFarlane on viola to perform Gareth Farr’s Ahi.
Baroque music is also coming back to Dunedin’s St Paul’s Cathedral in February with the world premiere of Ritchie’s harpsichord concerto, Four Seasons in One Day. The Baroque Music Community and Educational Trust of New Zealand is touring internationally acclaimed Czech solo flutist Julie Brana alongside an ensemble of baroque specialists, including cellist Tomas Hurnik, Rakuto Kurano and Szabolcs Illes. The tour also goes to Oamaru and Rippon Vineyard.
Dance
The world premiere of Macbeth, choreographed by Alice Topp, is coming to Dunedin as the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s first production of the year.
RNZB artistic director Ty King-Wall says doing two brand-new ballets back to back - last year’s Kiwi The Nutcracker and now Macbeth, a co-production with Western Australian Ballet, is a huge ask for the company, especially given they are wildly different works.
"Alice’s telling of this is a very contemporary approach through a modern lens - it’s dark, it’s gritty, there’s a heaviness to it, but a power, a visceral power, and I think the contrast from Nutcracker, which couldn’t be more of a world apart from that, it’s such an exciting challenge for the dancers, it’s what you want to test your limits and your ability to switch."
RNZB is also bringing Sleeping Beauty to the city as its Christmas production. It is a production created in New Zealand in 2011 but has not been done since.
"It brings that magical fairy tale world to life in a big way. And, again, such a huge challenge, Sleeping Beauty for the dancers, it’s one of those ballets that you want to perform as a dancer, and those big roles, especially for Aurora, is a real pinnacle."
As part of Dance Ōtepoti’s City Moves project, dancer and choreographer Oliver Connew will be performing a site-responsive, processional, solo dance in February that traces the obscured course of Toitū stream through central Dunedin. The performance will invite audiences and passers-by into a slowed and immersive encounter.
It will be followed by International Dance Day celebrations in early May and plans are afoot for another weekend of dance showcasing the city’s dance community.
Music
Internationally acclaimed Flamenco guitarist Paco Pena will perform at Dunedin’s Regent Theatre in April. The performance begins with him playing solo before expanding into a full flamenco experience with singers, dancers and musicians.
Dunedin Arts Festival director Charlie Unwin says he is delighted to be working with the Regent to bring a show of this international calibre to the city.
"We’re looking forward to seeing Dunedin turn out to see this incredible musician - and to experience the absolute beauty and passion of flamenco dancers around him."
The Regent is also bringing in "27 Club" on March 21, a rock revival that has been a hit across Australia and at Edinburgh Fringe. Australian musicians from The Superjesus, Jebediah, Bob Evans, Mondo Psycho and Wanderers pay tribute to dead music legends Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix.
Dunedin’s Rock Tenors are also touring nationally in April and May, their "Anthems Reloaded Tour" starting at the Dunedin Town Hall.
Multi-award-winning Canadian troubadour Scott Cook is returning to New Zealand, this time with his sweetheart Pamela Mae who plays bass and sings, performing in Dunedin and Invercargill in February on a nationwide tour. It is a celebration of his eighth album, Troubadourly Yours.
AOT is also bringing to the regions Irish group Sean Kelly and Friends in May complete with a backdrop of Super 8 movies taken by Kelly’s father and the Carnivorous Plant Society in July. Finn Scholes, on vocals, is joined by Tiny Ruins bass player Cass Basil and drummer Alistair Deverick.
Comedians
British comedian Jimmy Carr kicked off the international season for visiting comedians to Dunedin with a show last week. He will be followed by a British comedian on his first tour in 10 years, Alan Davies, with his "Think Ahead" show at the Regent Theatre in August.
Scottish comedian Danny Bhoy’s "Dear World" show comes to the Glenroy in February.
