Dunedin Fringe Festival: Rite of Return

Where story, song, and live art collide to reveal the beauty, tension, and truth of who we are.

Rite of Return is an immersive, cross-cultural performance weaving poetry, song, story, movement, and live frottage art into a visceral ritual of belonging. Part ceremony, part live art installation, part spoken-word experience, this work invites audiences into the raw, beautiful intersections where identity, culture, grief, and homecoming meet.

At its heart, Rite of Return explores what it means to live between worlds – Māori, Pasifika, Scottish, Swedish, Aotearoa, queer, spiritual, displaced, reclaimed. It is a work of paradox and beauty, silence and expression, memory and emergence. Through mark-making, layered sound, ancestral echoes, and interwoven narrative, the performance becomes a shifting ecosystem where stories rise in real time and the invisible becomes visible.

Created and performed by a cross-disciplinary trio.

Julian Noel
A storyteller, poet, and actor whose work is grounded in emotional truth and cultural resonance. Julian draws from Ngāpuhi lineage, lived wisdom, and the raw edges of human experience to create performances that land in the body as much as the ear. His voice – spoken, sung, or whispered – carries the pull of someone who has walked through fire and returned with something worth saying. He brings humour, depth, and fearless authenticity.

Anne-Marie Hamilton
A visual artist and poet who transforms texture, landforms, and memory into living impressions. Her frottage practice captures the hidden stories beneath surfaces – the grain of old timber, the imprint of history, the murmurs of place. With Scottish and New Zealand heritage, she bridges what is seen and unseen. Her live mark-making becomes a moving archive that traces belonging, time, and identity.

Ingrid Campbell
A poet, creative arts therapist, and orator of Cook Islands, Swedish, and Scottish ancestry. Ingrid weaves narrative, ritual, and emotional inquiry int

Book your tickets HERE