The Veiled Isle

Art-rock band Birdfeeder is pushing the envelope of what a live gig can be, with their shadow puppetry visual album The Veiled Isle.

The show has already been created and performed once for Lōemis Festival in 2021, and with a little help from you, we’re bringing it to NZ Fringe 2022 in Wellington, for four performances in Te Auaha’s Tapere Nui theatre. 

About the project

Working with theatre artists Zoe Higgins and Paja Neuhoferova, Birdfeeder’s songs will be animated by multi-layered, large scale shadow puppetry, taking the audience on a dreamy, mesmerising journey. You haven’t seen a live gig or a puppet show like this, ever before. 

About the team

Birdfeeder is an art-rock trio from Wellington, led by Stephanie Cairns on lead songwriting, vocals and keyboards, with Marley Mokomoko-Young on bass and Josh Harris on drums. They have recently recorded and released a companion EP to the show, titled The Vile Isle. Listen here.

Zoe is a theatre artist and poet who has extensive experience working as a theatre tech, which has been invaluable in finding our feet in the theatre space. Paja hails from the Czech Republic and is known in Wellington as an improviser, clown, puppeteer and physical theatre expert. Warwick Donald is one of Wellington’s most well known sound engineers, who has worked with countless venues and musical projects – he also recorded and mixed The Vile Isle EP. 

Why we need your help

The Covid Red Light restrictions have cut our potential ticket sales from a maximum of 125 per show, to just 36. Fortunately, Te Auaha have generously waived the bulk of their hire fees for the venue. We are absolutely stoked that in this environment of cancelled gigs, we will still be able to go ahead – but our budget is short overall by about $700, even if we sell 90% of our tickets. 

We need your help to ensure everyone in the team can get paid properly under these limitations. We put the same amount of work in each night regardless of how many seats are filled in the audience and will be delivering the same excellent show. Our aim is for the puppeteers to be paid $100 for each performance, the band $200 as a group, and sound tech $200. 

Thank you so much for the support!