Culture 101

British coming-of-age drama, How to Have Sex has found a new way to tackle the issue of sexual consent. It’s strangely both nostalgic and very uncomfortable - which is perhaps, exactly why you should watch it. 

Habitat-printing robot birds, water-filtering sewer submarines, and flying bikes launched on waste heat thermals are just a few of the 100-plus bonkers ideas artist and industrial designer Steve Mushin is suggesting to our cities to address climate change.

Yoson An’s career (Mulan, The Luminaries, Dead Lucky, Creamerie)  has been steadily on the rise and impressively, he’s played a wide range of characters. But until now he’s never been a rom-com lead.

What is it with tall people up the front at gigs? Should morning raves replace gym sessions? Joining us this week on Best of the Fest are writers Emily Perkins and Arihia Latham, artist Suzanne Tamaki and theatre critic Cate Prestidge. This is the second episode of a brand new RNZ national five-week lively conversation series  about a feast of cultural treats on offer in arts festivals across Aote...

RNZ Culture 101 presents the first episode online and on-air of Best of the Fest - a brand new five-week 30 minute panel discussion series.  Hosts Perlina Lau and Mark Amery are joined by Aotearoa artists and commentators for lively banter about a feast of cultural treats on offer in arts festivals across New Zealand.

Arts News for 25 February 2024

Whether you’re a Swiftie or you’re rolling your eyes, you can’t deny the influence of Taylor Swift. She is inescapable and it feels as though she’s been on a mission of world domination this past year. 

Every week Culture 101 speaks to a creative correspondent to gauge the cultural pulse of Aotearoa’s regions. Speaking from Kirikiriroa as the Hamilton Arts Festival kicks off, theatre critic Louisa Drummond joins Perlina Lau to discuss the latest arts and culture offerings in the Waikato region.

Acclaimed Irish singer songwriter Lisa O’Neill has been enjoying some wider attention lately for two reasons. Firstly, a spellbinding rendition of ‘Fairytale of New York’ sung alongside Glen Hansard at the funeral of her friend Shane McGowan. And secondly for her cover of Bob Dylan's ‘All the Tired Horses’ on the last ever episode of popular TV series Peaky Blinders.

The Savage Club started in London in 1857 and was a ‘gentleman’s club’ dedicated to the arts and literature. Eventually, it was established throughout the Commonwealth. Fast forward to 2010, and artist Sistar S’pacific, aka Rosanna Raymond conceived The SaVĀge K'lub, and like its namesake which inspired it, it too, has grown into a collective of chapters worldwide. 

Cabaret Thoroughly Modern Māui stemmed from a conversation between musical theatre performer Rutene Spooner and actor Jennifer Ward-Lealand. 

A group of acclaimed Maori artists have been selected to exhibit as part of the centrepiece international exhibition at this year’s Venice Biennale in May. Brett Graham was one of those chosen.  But it’s not the only island hopping the sculptor has been doing this year. Brett is the curator of this year’s Sculpture on the Gulf, opening this weekend on Waiheke Island, Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s arguably...

A theatre show at this year’s Hamilton Arts Festival was inspired by an incident and debate at Waitangi in 2021. 

Poetry and music at their best share a trick: the ability to be both celestial and grounded; dealing with the particulars of our lives, yet moving into abstraction. They can be at once very personal to their writers, but also build community.  This is certainly true of Te Whanganui-a-Tara poet Sylvan Spring’s first book Killer Rack, recently published by Te Herenga Waka University Press. As noveli...

Super Bowl 58 was held in Las Vegas this year with the Kansas City Chiefs facing off against the San Francisco 49ers. The event has become a cultural phenomenon across the world, televised in more than 200 countries. 

Every week Culture 101 speaks to a creative correspondent to gauge the cultural pulse of Aotearoa’s regions. This week, we’re in Kaikoura with writer, poet, researcher and museum curator, Te Awhina Rangimarie Arahanga.

Kristen Ng aka electronic artist Kaishandao has been touring Aotearoa this summer in support of her beat-filled album Homeland. She describes it as an “atemporal exploration through the places, spaces and people we call home.” Ng is Pōneke born-and-raised, but home for the past 10 years has been Chengdu, the captial of China’s Southwestern Sichuan province.  

It’s one of the great cultural events of Aotearoa New Zealand – certainly one of the longest established: Whānau Mārama New Zealand International Film Festival. But now, RNZ film critic and broadcaster Simon Morris says it seems a shadow of its former self. The last three years have been a challenge and now, the festival has been rocked by a series of major resignations in the last month.

2023 Billy T winner Abby Howells is taking her award winning show La Soupco to the Hamilton Arts Festival. 

It was love at first sight, or sound rather, for tabla master Basant Madhur, and Irish guitarist and bouzouki player Jon Sanders.

This weekend at Auckland Museum there is a rare overnight wananga to share matauranga Māori knowledge around an extraordinary object: Te Rā, the only customary Maori sail in existence. It has returned to Aotearoa for exhibition, after 200 years in storage at the British Museum. 

Every week Culture 101 heads to a creative correspondent out around the motu to gauge the cultural pulse of Aotearoa’s regions.  This week: Māori know it as Murihiku, “the last joint of the tail” but our southernmost graffiti artist Deow’s mission is to bring big painterly life to the walls of Southland’s towns. 

In Aotearoa, families celebrate the Lunar New Year in a variety of ways, says paediatrician, poet and playwright Renee Liang. For her own family, Chinese New Year's Eve is the occasion for a special, lavish meal that's "a little bit like Christmas lunch" in that everyone is expected to turn up at the parental home.

Our wrap-up of the week's arts and culture news.

Comedian and writer Jess Karamjeet is hoping her love of Neighbours will be the Trojan horse for her new show Redundant.