Te Whaea
Custom Built to Meet Student Needs
Toi Whakaari is housed in Te Whaea: National Dance and Drama Centre in Newtown, Wellington. Te Whaea is purpose built as a centre for teaching performing arts and is large and modern, with state of the art facilities.
The building is in Newtown on part of Wellington’s ‘green belt’ nature reserve, five minutes drive from the heart of the city
Toi Whakaari shares these premises with the New Zealand School of Dance. Although the two schools operate separately, dance staff teach some classes for Toi Whakaari and provide the students with an opportunity to explore the dance medium. Design and Entertainment Technology students provide technical and design support for both Schools.
Toi Whakaari has three large and four small drama studios. The larger studios all have sprung floors and mirrors to help with rehearsals.
The Lecture Theatre will eventually double as a light lab and projection room to show our films. The Lecture Theatre complements our current classrooms.
Our technical, management and design students can access various production offices, a sound studio, a computer lab, a prop-making workshop, a set construction workshop and an AV studio. We also have a CAD/design computer lab equipped with a complement of MACs with specialist software.
Specifically for our design students we have a large design studio and a small design studio.
Our Costume Workshop is equipped as a teaching space with industrial machines, overlockers, mannequins and cutting tables.
