Culture 101

A psychological thriller, part of TVNZ’s Motherhood Anthology Series has been released in time for Mother’s Day. The film’s title Amah holds three different meanings. The term, used in East Asia, describes a woman employed by a family to cook, clean and look after the children. In the Chinese Hokkien dialect, it’s the name and title given to a paternal grandmother and, in the case of this film, it...

10 albums in 10 years in 10 different genres - that was Troy Kingi’s goal. But after the release of the seventh album - 2023’s ambient instrumental vibe album Timewasters - he’s admitted in a new TVNZ series Desert Hīkoi it was “starting to feel a bit stale.” He had been feeling a creative block. Desert Hīkoi follows Kingi on his creative and spiritual journey with his band to regain his mojo.

The 2024 NZ Children’s Music Awards have been announced with the NZ On Air Best Children’s Music Video awarded to a two minute ode to flatulence.  ‘Let it Out’ by Don McGlashan and Harry Sinclair, featuring Tami Neilson,  is from the pair’s hit claymation TV series Kiri and Lou.

Arts News for 5 May 2024

In early 2021 writer Stuart McKenzie and director Miranda Harcourt’s verbatim play Transmission opened to sell-out houses at Pōneke’s small, dynamic BATS Theatre. Fast forward three years and a sequel Transmission Beta is about to premiere. And it’s a quite different, more complex story.  McKenzie and Dame Miranda joined Mark Amery on RNZ’s Culture 101.

Festival Opera is celebrating 10 years of introducing, training and supporting young people in the opera through the Project Prima Volta community programme in Hawkes Bay. 

Known for its surf and beaches, Mangawhai may not strike you as a hub for arts and culture. But locals are extremely proud of the modern museum which celebrates the town’s rich history, life around the harbour and the fight to save the endangered fairy tern. 

Hamiltonians are getting the last laugh as the first-ever comedy club in the city is opening this month. Coinciding with the Comedy Festival, Last Laugh Comedy Club is the only comedy club in the Waikato region. 

Actor, director and writer John Davies is celebrating 50 years in theatre with a national solo tour. Te Tupua - The Goblin is travelling to 16 regional centres, with Davies playing nine characters in English and te reo Māori. 

The closure of the City Gallery building won't stop it from bringing art to the capital, its boss says.

Arts news for Sunday 28 April 2023

The large wall hung quilts of takatāpui fabric artist and storyteller Maungaronga Te Kawa (Ngāti Porou) leap and sparkle as joyous dance. They are blankets of aroha for a world that needs it.  Yet bright colours and animated cartoon figures belie the sophistication of these works. They test the boundaries of both Toi Māori and contemporary art, bringing social concerns to the fore through quilting...

New Zealand’s local production and screen industry is in crisis. But how did it get to this point?  “It’s been years of international streaming companies operating in New Zealand without any regulation,” says Screen Production and Developers Association (SPADA) President Irene Gardiner.

Each week, Culture 101 puts the spotlight on a different region in Aotearoa and this week it’s Taupō with artist, musician, composer, puppeteer and stone carver, Jeffrey Addison. 

Sir Roger Hall remains Aotearoa New Zealand’s most popular playwright. Since 1976 his plays have often been box office gold.  Now 85, and continuing to write plays through retirement, he recently told The Post he’d be happiest to die in front of the keyboard. He talks about his latest play - about an investment art club - to Culture 101. 

This week King Loser, an independent Aotearoa New Zealand documentary won the Taite Music Prize for music journalism. Directors Cushla Dillon and Andrew Moore’s real life tragicomic chronicle of King Loser, a beloved cult rock and roll band trying to make a comeback, is a thing of excellence.  But where do you go to see it? Netflix, Neon, Disney? Think again. TVNZ Plus? Not even. The good news is...

It’s the 10th season of Loading Docs - an initiative to showcase Aotearoa’s documentary  filmmakers. For a decade, it’s helped mentor emerging talent who’ve gone on to pursue successful careers in the screen industry. 

It’s rare for an Aotearoa New Zealand writer to appear at book festivals about a novel, months out from its release. But then the sequel to a book as beloved and devastating as 2019’s Auē by Becky Manawatu (Ngāi Tahu) is no small event.   As Auckland Writers Festival has aptly put it, Westport based Becky Manawatu’s debut novel took both the public and literary world by storm. The winner of the Ja...

Arts news for Sunday 21 April 2024

Pōneke based poet and journalist Abdul Samad Haidari became a refugee at the age of 10. For Haidari poetry has been a way to cope with the trauma and to turn it into empowerment. His second book of poetry The Unsent Condolences was launched recently at Unity Books in Pōneke Wellington. 

Intimacy coordination is a relatively new concept both in Aotearoa and across the world. Borne from the #MeToo movement, it’s a way to keep actors and crew safe on film and television sets and in theatre productions. 

It’s known as ‘mural town’, it's Aotearoa New Zealand’s avocado capital and this week it’s the focus of Culture 101’s regional wrap. 

The Aotearoa Art Fair is the apex of the art market food chain. This weekend on the Tāmaki Makaurau waterfront, the public, 32 dealers and many curators from around Aotearoa come happily together at the fair for both the market and a champagne-charged party. 

Oscar-nominated US filmmaker Ava Duvernay’s new thought-provoking film Origin is based on the New York Times bestselling book Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson.

Aotearoa New Zealand has won one of the world’s most prestigious art prizes.  Mataaho collective have been awarded the Golden Lion by a jury at the 60th Venice Biennale for their large scale work in the main curated exhibition.  Held every two years, the Biennale is dubbed the Olympics of the art world and Mataaho collective’s achievement, as Creative New Zealand’s Amanda Hereaka describes, is “th...