Culture 101

The phrase 'clown doctor' may lead to memories of Robin Williams' character in the 1998 film Patch Adams. It was a character who was based on a real person. Kiwi theatre maker Phoebe Mason is a real clown doctor at The Humour Foundation in Melbourne; taking theatre, fun, and laughter into hospitals. Several years ago, a nurse studying for her PhD looked at the work of clown doctors and their impac...

Whakatane-based artist Sarah Hudson is this year's Naoshima Artist in Residence. Sarah has now opened her work - Reconciliation at the Setouchi Triennale on Megijima island in Japan, in which she looks at the concept of connection between lands, islands and identity. The Triennale runs until November and the international arts event attracts more than a million visitors each year. The residency is...

Pat Shortt first made it in comedy in Ireland young, back in the late 1980s before there was even a comedy scene, He was one half of a beloved comedy duo D'Unbelievables. But it was a celebrated TV programme that first aired 30 years ago last month, Father Ted, which Kiwis will remember him from.  While the film work continues, in the last few years Pat has entered into a new popular comedic partn...

Known for her gregarious nature, powerful vocals and wicked sense of humour - Jackie Clarke is one of the country's favourite entertainers. With four decades of experience under her belt, Jackie was given a New Zealand Order of Merit in 2018 and the Variety Artists Lifetime Achievement Award - The Benny last year. Now she's going prima diva around the South Island on a 23-date tour with Arts on To...

Welcome to May and a bumper crop of cultural events -  which makes this week's Culture 101 Fast Favourite guest an easy pick, given he embraces all fields, often at once. Otepoti Dunedin's David Eggleton is a writer, performer and art critic. 

Arts News for Sunday 27th April 2025

 At the NZ International Comedy Festival in May the Naked Samoans will reunite for the first time in seven years. They join a new generation of makers and comedians. So on Culture 101 we thought it a good time to talk about what's changed, with a panel. 

 Metalfest4 is at the Collards Tavern on Friday May 3, and alongside headliners from around the country it features a number of heavy locals. Joining visitors Captured Kings and Grym Rhymney is new teenage talent from Waipu - a band called Fork. Attendees can also look forward to seeing Skumlord from the Bay of Islands .

The brand new long awaited home for The Court Theatre officially opens Saturday May 3 in Otautahi Christchurch. It is an impressive $61.4 million purpose-built home for New Zealand's largest professional theatre company. Centre mainstage for the opening production is one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most beloved actors, directors and writers for theatre, film and television. Sir Ian Mune. He was knig...

Whether it's a brand like 100% Pure or paintings and film of a rural idyll, we've become familiar in Aotearoa New Zealand with the tension between our depiction of the landscape, and the reality when we consider the effects on it of economic and social development. Similar tensions are at play in what is being billed as the first show of contemporary Japanese art in New Zealand in 20 years: 

Renowned lighting designer Angus Muir is launching a new immersive experience in the heart of Tamaki Makaurau next week. He's worked locally and internationally on many recognised installations including Sydney's Vivid, LUMA in Queenstown, Matariki Festival; wowing audiences around the world. Now with Darklight, he's collaborating with different artists, it's the first time Muir is setting his own...

Kiwi actor and comedian Bailey Poaching is one of the stars in the new Netflix comedy series North of North. Set in the small village of Ice Cove in the Arctic Circle, it's a delightful show that centres around a young Inuk woman Siaja who's suddenly left her marriage, rather publicly to reinvent and find herself again. It's an ensemble cast with Poaching playing the local radio DJ and communicati...

In the bringing together of art and mental health, Kim Morton is a champion. Following the Christchurch earthquakes, Kim founded Otautahi Creative Spaces, a busy creative community in inner city suburb Philipstown. 

Well known interior designer Sonja Hawkins joined Culture 101 to talk about her passion for art, and to share some tips for displaying art in the home.

Ildica Boyd joins Culture 101 from the 9th biennial Easter Art exhibition hosted by Castle Hill Village Creative. 

Wellington based artist Michele Bryant joins Culture 101.

Mike Beer aka Ghostcat joins Culture 101 to discuss his The Ghosts on Every Corner exhibition.

Screening Sunday April 27 in Poneke Wellington is FW Murnau's classic 1922 spooky silent film Nosferatu: A symphony of Horror, with a few sensory twists. Not only will it be accompanied by a live score, composed and played by Peter Dasent, this will also be 'scented cinema'. Presented with Australian producers Snivure and Scented Storytelling, patrons are to be given a souvenir card with ten scrat...

Arts News from across the country with Mark and Angie - for the second week of April 2025.

"I am like the active verb to be and to do," wrote the determined trailblazing early New Zealand painter and writer Emily Cumming Harris. "I am," she added, "too necessary an appendage to be left out.' 

Isabel Frey is singer and ethnomusicologist from Vienna, who is attempting to carry the musical tradition of the Jewish Labour Bund, the Yiddish-speaking socialist party in pre-World War II Eastern Europe. During a visit to New Zealand this year she spoke to Nick Bollinger.

On the road between Christchurch and Queenstown, the town of Fairlie often gets called gateway to the Mackenzie Country. 

 Shawn Simpson is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh and joined Culture 101.

The Kaikoura titi, or Hutton's shearwater is a remarkable bird. Endemic to Kaikoura and endangered, it is the only alpine-breeding seabird in the world. 

Thousands of students were outside Parliament in Wellington on Friday for the School Strike 4 Climate protest. The core team organising were aged between 14 and 17 and their overarching theme "Don't Fast Track Our Future" was in response to the government's launch in February of a regime aiming to allow major infrastructure projects to be built more quickly and easily. Which makes some arts news t...