Standing Room Only for Sunday 4 October 2020

 

12:16  Hawkes Bay Verbatim - life stories on stage

Six Hawkes Bay elders have shared their personal stories with a local theatre group, and now their words are woven faithfully into a work of theatre.

"Verbatim theatre" can take numerous forms.   For As the Day Draws In, Teresa Woodham and director Puti Lancaster have taken parts of the translated recordings to create a work that's a blend of personal family stories and a broader  social history of Heretaunga.

Puti and Teresa's interviewees were in their 70s through to their early 90s, and the verbatim theatre work is about to be presented at the Harcourts Hawke's Bay Arts Festival, after changes made following a development season last year.

Lynn Freeman talks with both Puti and Teresa, who tells her there was a lot of trust involved in recording these life stories.

As the Day Draws In premieres on Wednesday the 14th of October at the St Andrews Hall in Hastings as part of the Harcourts Hawke's Bay Arts Festival.

 

12:35 RenewArt reimagines Queenstown's art

Producing pewter kiwi, stuffed kiwifruit and other nicknacks for overseas tourists - that's no longer an option for the many artists and artisans in those regions who've relied mostly on the international tourism trade.

But there are new opportunities with the influx of New Zealanders keen to travel and learn more about other parts of their own country.

Artists in the Queenstown-Lakes district have definitely changed what they're producing.   About 40 of them have been funded to perform and exhibit material based on their Covid-19 experience, at free public events called RenewArt in Queenstown and Wanaka.

The Three Lakes Cultural Trust is behind RenewArt,   Lynn Freeman speaks with one of the participating artists, jeweller Kay Turner, and with the Trust's General Manager, Jo Brown, who explains how the Trust has pitched in to assist its struggling creatives.

RenewArt 2020 starts in Queenstown on the 9th of October before heading to Wanaka on Friday the 16th of October. Just a reminder that while free these are ticketed events.

12:47  The art - of collecting art

The annual Auckland Art Week has negotiated its way around the changing alert levels so that it can take place this month in locations around the city.

Would you like to start collecting art?  Or do you worry that you don't know where to begin, or how much it might cost?  Would you like to hear how inexpensive - and actually fun - it can be?

Lynn Freeman talks to Tim Melville, director of the Tim Melville Gallery, and to Sarah McCrory director of Fox/Jensen/McCrory.  They're about to give a talk about collecting art at the Tim Melville Gallery in Grey Lynn as part of this year's Art Week.

Tim and Sarah say the first rule is it doesn't have to be expensive but it should be something you love.

 

1:10 At The Movies

This week Simon Morris reviews The War with Grandpa, The Secret Garden and Four Kids and It

 

1:33  Scratchboard artist Karen Rankin 

Paint brush, hammer and chisel, camera and bare hands - these are among the most common artists' implements.  Scalpels and tattoo needles - not so much.

Karen Rankin is a Scratchboard artist who creates thousands of scratches on inked boards to create portraits of wildlife. Often they're black and white but she'll also use iridescent inks for some of our more colourful creatures.

She lives Marlborough but she's in Wellington at the moment to open an exhibition of wildlife at the Zealandia sanctuary in the capital.

Karen's also just won the top award at the Hope &Sons Art Awards in Dunedin for a pastel portrait of her son. Lynn Freeman asked her what exactly scratchboard art is...

Karen Rankin's exhibition Jewels of Zealandia is on show at the Wellington sanctuary.
 

1:46  Shadowing W B Yeats - the poet's overlooked wife Georgie Hyde-Lees

Irish poet William Butler Yeats was a member of a clandestine society where spirits were conjured and magic practised - and by his side was the much younger woman who'd later become his wife  - Georgie Hyde-Lees.

Berlin-based New Zealand poet and writer Alice Miller became intrigued with Georgie's story, wanting her to step out of the shadow of her famous - and famously eccentric - husband.

More Miracle Than Bird introduces us to a young Georgie as she escapes her wealthy family to volunteer as a nurse in a makeshift hospital for injured army officers in the First World War. 

Alice Miller has already published two poetry collections, but this is her first novel.  Lynn Freeman asks her about the relationship between the poet and his wife.

More Miracle Than Bird is published by Tin House Books.

 

2:06 The Laugh Track -Tofiga Fepulea'i

The influence of the Pacific on New Zealand comedy can't be overstated - Oskar Kightley and Robbie Magasivo, satirist James Nokise, Bro Town and the film Three Wise Cousins and the hugely popular Laughing Samoans - Eteuati Ete and today's guest Tofiga Fepulea'i. 

Since the Laughing Samoans, Tofiga's branched out - tours around the world, a starring role in the comedy thriller Take Home Pay, and now a seven-stop comedy tour called Sorry Bout It.  Simon Morris talks to Tofiga about life for a Samoan comedian.

Tofiga Fepulea'i' s picks include Loyiso Gola, Steve Harvey, Katt Williams and Gary Owen.

 

2:27 Whangārei Fringe Festival - absolutely the right time for it!

A determination to change the perception of Whangārei as a city full of empty buildings is behind Hayley Clark's decision to become co-founder of the city's first Fringe Festival.  Not even Covid-19 could stop the visual artist, curator and theatre mentor from adding "Festival Director" to her CV.

A shout-out for artists saw three times more sign up than she expected.  There'll be more than 150 shows over the week long event.

One of the big jobs for the organizing team is turning a former art gallery and nightclub into the festival's comedy venue.

Hayley also has one of her art works in a Fringe group exhibition called Create-A-Saint.   She explains to Lynn Freeman why this is the right year for Whangārei's first Fringe Festival.

Create-A-Saint opens at the Megan Dickinson Gallery on the 9th of October as part of the Whangarei Fringe Festival.

 

2:40  Giving added meaning to Tauranga's City Art Walk

Ever stood, mystified, in front of a public artwork wishing you had even a scrap of information to help you make sense of it?

A new app about to come online in Tauranga will help to explain and demystify 20 artworks placed around the city centre.  The City Art Walk is part of Tauranga's Escape Festival later this month.

Sonya Korohina and her team have been working on researching and illustrating the free app so people can hear the full story behind the street art, the stained glass windows and the city's Hairy McLarey statues of famous local Lynley Dodd's beloved stories. 

Sonya's company Supercut Projects is behind the project that will be launched as part of the city's Escape! Festival.

As she tells Lynn Freeman, without context it's too easy for public artworks to be misunderstood and often overlooked.

Tauranga's City Art Walk app is available to download from the 17th of October. As part of the city's Escape! festival there will also be some real life guided tours.
 

2:49 Lighting designer Angus Muir

From fashion runways and Wellington's cable-car tunnels, to massive public spaces around the world,  Angus Muir and his team transform public spaces using lights - hundreds and thousands of them.

The Auckland-based lighting designer has two big events coming up in the City of Sails.  Angus is illuminating one of the main venues for the upcoming Elemental Nights event, and he's installing a suspended artwork called Ripple in Exchange Lane for Auckland Art Week.

But many of his company's planned projects and festival events around the world have fallen victim to the pandemic.

Angus Muir tells Lynn Freeman he can trace his interest in lighting back to his high school years:

The work he's doing on the Hopetown Alpha venues for Elemental Nights will be revealed on the 17th of October. Before then you'll be able to see Ripple suspended over Exchange Lane as part of Auckland Art Week.

 

3:06 Drama at 3 - Part Two of Think of a Garden by John Kneubuhl

We return to the Samoa of some 90 years ago  

Although it was a pacifist group, the Mau unsettled the New Zealand administrators in Apia. They banished some of its active members to other parts of the South Pacific, and one of Samoa's four paramount chiefs, Tupua Tamasese Lealofi the Third was sentenced to 6 months in Auckland's Mt Eden jail.

The incident that followed his return to Apia - just after Christmas in 1929 - is one of the sadder chapters in New Zealand's history in Samoa, and it's at the centre of the play that we're featuring 

When we broke from the story last Sunday, Louisa  Kreber had been hoping that her cousin, Tupua Tamasese Lealofi the third, would visit her home in American Samoa.

He is sailing back to New Zealand-administered Western Samoa after 6 months in Mt Eden jail.    But it's now late at night, there's been no sign of him and the boat they thought might be carrying him turned out to be a different vessel...

Music played in this show

Artist: Nancy Sinatra
Song: These boots are made for walking
Composer: Hazelwood
Album: Lightning's Girl
Label: Raven
Played at: 12.12

Artist: The Bangles
Song: Walk like an Egyptian
Composer:  Sternberg
Album: Greatest Hits
Label:  Columbia
Played at: 12.30

Artist: Foo Fighters
Song: Walk
Composer: Foo Fighters
Album: Wasting Light
Label: RCA
Played at: 12.58

Artist: Gerry and the Pacemakers
Song: You'll never walk alone
Composer: Rodgers-Hammerstein
Album:  The Singles Plus
Label: EMI
Played at: 1.07

Artist: Linda Ronstadt and Ann Savoy
Song: Walk away Renee
Composer: Brown-Calilli
Album: Duets
Label:  Rhino
Played at: 1.41

Artist: Lou Reed
Song: Walk on the wild side
Composer:  Reed
Album: Transformer
Label: RCA
Played at: 1.58

Artist: Rufus Thomas
Song: Walking the dog
Composer: Thomas
Album: Sweet Soul Music: Best of Stax Records
Label:  Universal
Played at:  2.04

Artist: B J Cole
Song: Sleepwalk
Composer: Farina-Farina
Album: Twelve Monkeys soundtrack
Label: MCA
Played at: 2.35

Artist: The Proclaimers
Song: I'm gonna be (500 miles)
Composer:  Reid-Reid
Album: The Best of
Label: Persevere
Played at: 3.58