4 days ago
How Does She Manage It? Fringe Festival Favourite Returns To Wellington
Fearless performer and maverick of the stage, Eliza Sanders, blew Wellingtonians away with her a revolutionary fusion of contemporary dance, cine-theatre, and quirky comedy at the New Zealand Fringe Festival in 2024. Now, after both national and international success, Manage Your Expectation returns for a very limited return season at Wellington's Circa Theatre from 16 -20 September 2025.
Manage Your Expectations transforms contemporary performance through an ingenious combination of live cinema, whimsical humour, and profound physical storytelling. The work begins in the increasingly-popular style of comic performance lecture (think Hannah Gadsby's Nanette). Clownish antics and personal storytelling set up the work's second half which is brimming with evocative moments of moving image on stage and screen. Each vivid scene addresses a universal concept of human relationships: Partners, Children, Ancestors, Self and Death.
' This is Eliza's most sophisticated and nuanced piece of choreography and image-making. It's the most accessible piece of dance-led theatre we've made." says Allanah.
The work has already garnered major recognition, taking home awards for Outstanding Solo Performance at NZ Fringe 2024 and Best Performer at Whangārei Fringe 2024, as well as seven award nominations in the same year, most notably Best In Fringe and Most Innovative Work (NZ Fringe) and Most Original Production at the Wellington Theatre Awards.
Manage Your Expectations holds a lens up to live performance, through an ingenious combination of comedic storytelling, hypnotising live-feed cinematography, and profound movement. The simplicity of the setup - one solo performer, a camera, a screen and you, the audience - strikes awe and deep personal resonance with the audience. Movement, multimedia, and razor-sharp wit combine to examine the impossibility of perfect communication, musing on the influence of context, identity and personal history while creating something beautiful from our collective mess.
Director Charley Allanah says 'It's about finding joy and humour in complexity, and in our endless inability to really understand ourselves and each other"
Eliza is proud to bring this bold and deeply personal work back to Wellington as part of TAHI Festival of Solo Performance. The 10-day Festival returns this September to uplift, amplify and celebrate the powerful voices of Aotearoa New Zealand's storytellers.
'Audiences can expect to be joyously confused and then profoundly moved. I like to make people laugh in order to open up their hearts so they can cry' says Sanders.
House of Sand and TAHI Festival presents:
Manage Your Expectations
WHEN: Tue 16 – Sat 20 Sept, 7:30pm | Sat 20 Sept, 2pm
WHERE: Circa Theatre, 1 Taranaki Street Te Aro, Wellington
