Culture 101

This year marks 20 years of Whakaata Māori - Māori Television. Something to celebrate particularly in this climate of broadcasting cuts and redundancies. A founding member of Māori TV, veteran broadcaster and television executive Julian Wilcox, was there at the very beginning: presenting the very first broadcast in 2004. 

Arts news for Sunday 14 April from RNZ

A "lack of joined-up thinking" in Wellington's gallery sector has led to two major art spaces closing at the same time, an art historian and former gallery director says.

Say the name Anurag Kashyap in South Asian circles and you’ll likely find some star struck fans.  The prominent Indian filmmaker will be in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland this week for an intimate conversation about his work, his tenacious storytelling and the moments which have shaped his career.

Baylys Beach is a settlement of a few hundred on a wild section on the west coast of Northland, just outside Takiwira Dargaville.  It’s home to painter Sean McDonnell who works and sells his art in the settlement when he’s not working as a tour guide up and down the motu.

If you’ve ever opened a magazine in Aotearoa New Zealand, chances are, you’ve almost certainly seen Jae Frew’s work. 

Today we are all publishers, sharing fresh content online to please our followers. So when does taking a photograph of an interesting artwork constitute a breach of copyright? And what about the harvesting of those images by AI? 

Two playwrights have won this year’s Adam NZ Play Award: Dan Bain from Christchurch for The Odyssey and Sam Brooks from Tāmaki Makaurau for This Is My Story of Us.

When a comedian approaches Comedy Festival season, you expect the trial of a new show, and all the challenges  that represents. But this year beloved Aotearoa comedian and journalist Te Radar isn't just preparing to perform his latest -  'Cookbookery!', a delve into vintage Kiwi cookbooks - he’ll be reimagining four other “docu-comedies” he’s created over 30 years in the business. 

Arts and culture news for Sunday 7 April. 

What does it take to be an effective cultural translator? Yang Fan will tell you that the language is just the beginning. 

If you think of your favourite film, chances are there’s a pivotal scene driven by music or a killer soundtrack. Either way, you can thank the work of a music supervisor. 

A $3.9 million dollar multi-purpose arts and cultural space, Te Atamira, opened in the burgeoning commercial district of Frankton near Queenstown in May 2022. It’s a hub for creative work from the communities that surround the three lakes of the wider Queenstown-Lake District: Whākatipu, Hāwea and Wānaka.   Te Atamira director, Olivia Egerton, says the strength of that community cultural life has...

“If opera doesn’t tell stories about right now or about who we are now, then eventually it’s just going to die out,” British composer Jonathan Dove tells Culture 101’s Mark Amery.  Jonathan Dove should know. With 32 operas to his name he’s one of the most performed living opera composers of our time.

Slavic culture crosses from Eastern Europe and the Balkans through to Asia. It encapsulates a real diversity of countries but which share  strong cultural roots in Slavic languages.  Their commonalities are apparent in Aotearoa New Zealand today through gloriously rich musical traditions often heard on festival stages. Celebrating the cultures of Slavic peoples who have settled here, festival Slav...

Food is perhaps one of the easiest ways to bring people together. But what about when it's painted? In the case of young Pōneke Wellington-based artist Alice Toomer’s hyperrealistic paintings, it can be striking, evoke emotion and even appeal to all the senses. 

Masterchef New Zealand winner 2022, author, and Instagram star Sam Low joins Culture 101 to share his inspirations and cultural favourites. 

Arts news for the week from RNZ's Culture 101.

Raised in the countryside, north of Tamaki Nui-A-Rua and Dannevirke in the lower North Island, Nui Stretch has the distinction of having two parallel careers in wood. One as a luthier, or guitar maker - trained by some of the world’s best - and the other as a carver, now based at Karehana Bay, Porirua near his tūrangawaewae, Hongoeka marae. 

20 years ago, artist Rozana Lee lost her mother, relatives, childhood friends and her family home in Aceh, Indonesia in the Boxing Day Tsunami. More than 200,000 people died in Indonesia, her mother Rosna among those left unaccounted for. Lee’s father Karimun survived.  At the time Rozana Lee was living in Singapore, working as a banker and had just given birth to her first child. The tragedy led...

Tyler Redmond joins Mark Amery on Culture 101 to introduce Blenheim for this week’s Regional Wrap.

A new report highlights a high level of engagement with arts, culture and recreation among 12-year-olds across Aotearoa New Zealand.  Released by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, the data is based on the University of Auckland’s Growing Up in New Zealand longitudinal research study. 

Jimmy D is welcome proof that fashion needn’t be all glitz and glam. It can relate as much to a grungier street reality as the cocktail party or old school business attire. Further it can at last be androgynous. Jimmy D has playfully extended everything from the hoodie and mesh shirt as clothes worn regardless of gender.

At first glance it may seem like an unlikely combination - Korean pop music and Pasifika youth - but as a new documentary on The Spinoff demonstrates, there’s a synergy and understanding.  K-pop is a distinctive form of contemporary  popular music originating in South Korea, that has gone global in appeal. The first recorded use of the term was in 1999. 

West End and Broadway wasn’t the dream when UK theatremaker Nancy Zamit co-founded Mischief Theatre in 2008, but the idea of being paid to do improv was. For this group of drama school students and friends, that would have been enough. But 16 years later, 2024 is perhaps the first time Zamit feels she can take a step back and have a breather.