The Moth Light Cabaret

Amid whirring puriri and rattling harakeke, David Eggleton’s torrential poetry meets Bridget Ellis’ reflective songs

The Moth Light Cabaret presents two combos, Swingbridge and Wild Cards Aotearoa, in an evening of music and words inspired by the heartland of Aotearoa, its coasts and marshes, its high country and mountains, its forests and plains. This entertaining and immersive show depicts a saga of settlement and change. It explores today's politics and the environment — and the way the world right now makes us feel. This cabaret goes digging in deep, like spoonbills along an estuary, and goes flying high, like oystercatchers by night above Knox Church. It celebrates what's weird and wonderful and special about these islands.


The Moth Light Cabaret is a kaleidoscope whirl of sound and vision, bringing in the endangered click beetles so casually disregarded by Resources Minister Shane Jones, the whirring wings of the puriri moth summoned by goddess Hine Nui Te Pō, and the rattle of flax pods made by Rūaumoko murmuring down in the swamp.


The Moth Light Cabaret will summon up, like a steam-train whistle, the ghosts of the sugarbag years: the plunk of the tea-chest bass, the jingle-jangle of the beer-bottle-top lagerphone, the mournful morepork call of the nose-flute, and the wheezing bellows of the piano accordion. Come with us as we take you on a fantastic jive across the motu in poems, ballads, rants and songs to transport you through space and time.


Swingbridge is the musical vehicle for Ōtepoti musicians: guitarist and singer Bridget Ellis, double bassist Matt Sanson and saxophonist Chris Meech. Swingbridge songs take you on a starlight journey from intricate folk to spacious jazz, from punchy rock to uncharted country.


Wild Cards Aotearoa are David Eggleton, the former New Zealand Poet Laureate, and Richard Wallis, a guitarist and soundscape composer.