Wellingtonians are so used to negative media narratives that celebrating their city feels like a radical act. In that context, CubaDupa’s ‘communal joy’ theme made perfect sense, write Joel MacManus and Lyric Waiwiri-Smith.
The theme of this year’s CubaDupa was “communal joy”. At first glance, it’s an eye-roller; less of a theme than the general vibe of a street fair. On the ground, though, amid the chaos and the colour, festival organiser Bianca Bailey’s vision made perfect sense.
Saturday was hot, heaving and highly intoxicating. Bunting fluttered in the light breeze over a crowd decked in sparkles and sunglasses. Slow-moving lines snaked into Swan Lane and Glover Park for craft beer and rhythmic funk. At the Laundry x Wellington Seamarket yard party, ravers climbed on tables and danced with insistent intensity.
CubaDupa is always joyful. It’s an outstanding project of community collaboration, an enormous free festival that consistently puts on a better show than many of this country’s paid events. Some years, the joy is mixed with acceptance in the face of hate, or pride in a collective response to a virus, or simply the relaxation of cutting loose. This year, communal joy felt like an act of defiance, a city standing up for itself through dance.
Wellington has survived a 12-month vibecession brought about by public sector layoffs and an economic downturn. It was yet another knock for a city that already made it through two earthquakes, a pandemic, and 12 years of media narratives about how their city is dying. Lately, though, it feels like there has been a shift. Wellington always comes alive in March as the university students return and punters get out to enjoy the late summer sun. This year especially so – there’s been a near-constant run of major music, comedy and sports events the past few weeks.
Wellingtonians are tired of the hand-wringing and self-flagellation. They’re sick of apologising for enjoying the city they chose to live in. At CubaDupa, the crowd was determined to remind themselves – and the naysayers – that Wellington is fun.
No one defined the sense of defiance more than Wellington Central MP Tamatha Paul, who performed a DJ set with one of Aotearoa’s highest-rising electronic music exports, Messie, on the Hunters & Collectors balcony. After making comments critical of police tactics, she’d spent a week being derided by a torrent of rageslop opinion columns – and yet, when she opened her set with KRS-One’s ‘Sound of da Police’, the hundreds of people gathered in front of her let out a chorus of “whoop whoops” that just about drowned out everything else happening on Cuba Street.
She had some initial trouble with the sound levels (“turn it up!” the crowd cried multiple times), but when the music finally amped up, so did the mood. Paul followed up with Vince Staples’ ‘Norf Norf’ (“I ain’t never run from nothing but the police”) and Scribe’s ‘Not Many’. When she dedicated Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Not Like Us’ to Winston Peters and Christopher Luxon, the crowd noise could’ve convinced you K-Dot himself was performing on top of the overpriced op shop.
King Homeboy appeared on the balcony next to her to freestyle over NWA’s ‘Fuck tha Police’ and throw merch into the crowd. To wrap it all up, Paul promised her audience she would “never shut the fuck up”. As she played her final song – Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name of’ – the crowd returned the sentiment, screaming “fuck you I won’t do what you tell me!” into the night air.
Paul wasn’t the only local politician to get in on the action. During Groove Council’s jazz-house-dance set at Glover Park, Mayor Tory Whanau and councillors Ben McNulty, Geordie Rogers, Nikau Wī Neera and Yadana Saw performed a frenetic mock council meeting on stage.
CupaDupa’s young, diverse and alternative attendees are a home crowd for the city’s lefty politicians, who clearly relished the friendly reception. It was a welcome respite from a government they feel is picking on them and local media they believe has become actively hostile. It hints at an interesting contrast in the upcoming local election – as the opposition right embraces doomerism, can the incumbent left find a way to celebrate the city without glossing over its problems?
Politics is only a small part of CubaDupa, but the theme of defiant positivity rang throughout. CubaDupa (and its previous iteration, the Cuba Street Carnival) is a festival with a stop-start history. It’s been cancelled and reborn multiple times and survives only through the collaboration of 31 financial and delivery partners and hundreds of volunteers. The energy it takes to pull it off is only possible through hope, ambition, and a defiant sense of joy.
