Standing Room Only for Sunday 11 July 2021

12:16  Museums Aotearoa - a new direction

 

April this year saw a mass resignation of the board of Museums Aotearoa, reportedly over its governance and management.

There were concerns it might not survive the upheaval, but there's now a new board in place that's determined to keep it alive and relevant.

Museums Aotearoa advocates for museums, art galleries, heritage properties and their employees around the motu.

At the recent AGM, the two new co-chairs have said they want to revitalise the organisation, to restore confidence in it, and help members negotiate some big changes in the sector.

Eloise Wallace from Gisborne's Tairawhiti Museum is one of the new co-chairs.  And board member Dr Amber Aranui from Te Papa is heavily involved in Museums Aotearoa's new repatriation policy, regarding the return of ancestral remains to iwi.

Lynn Freeman talks with Eloise and Amber, first asking Eloise why Museums Aotearoa needed to hang in there after a tough few years.
 
 

12:30 Dance Festival - taking it to the street

Homegrown experts in Krumping, Waacking, Vogue and Hip Hop dance styles are about to be celebrated in a new dedicated event.

THE NEST: Street Styles Solo Festival is the first of what the organisers hope will be many.  It's aimed at bringing in new audiences for street-style dancing, as well as offering a rare opportunity for the dancers.   They're all being commissioned to create new work for the week-long event at Auckland's Basement Theatre.

The dancers are used to the streets of Tāmaki Makaurau being their performance space.

Ooshcon Masseurs is one of the The Nest's organisers.   Lynn Freeman talks with him,  and with one of the dancers shoulder-tapped to present a new work, Hayley Walters-Tekahika, who's also an actor, teacher and youth worker.

First she asked Ooshcon to describe street styles.

THE NEST: Street Styles Solo Festival is on at the Basement Theatre in Auckland, starting this Tuesday. 
 

12:43 Sandy Adsett - six decades pioneering contemporary Māori art

Dr Sandy Adsett is one of the most significant and respected Māori artists and art teachers of his generation.  Now, finally, he's agreed to a retrospective exhibition embracing his six decades of painting practice.

It took the persuasive skills of one of his past students - Reuben Friend, now an art historian, curator and Director of Pātaka in Porirua - to get Sandy to say yes to the show which is called Toi Koru.

Now in his 80s, Dr Adsett is the principle tutor at Toimairangi School of Māori Art in Hawkes Bay, and he's also made time to create a new series of brightly coloured paintings for the survey show.

Lynn Freeman speaks with him, and with Reuben Friend, who explains Sandy's significant, if under-appreciated, contribution to contemporary Māori art.

Toi Koru opens on the 31st of July at Pātaka: Art + Museum in Porirua.

 

1:10 At The Movies

Simon Morris reviews animated features Cranston Academy and Spirit Untamed, French romantic comedy Antoinette in the Cevennes and Irish comedy-drama Dating Amber.

 

1:31  Veronica McLaughlin - capturing performance on camera

Postcards...  Instagram and other social media may have overtaken them as the favourite way to show people where you've been, but there's still something terribly evocative about the word.

Auckland Festival of Photography is using it for a YouTube channel  series called Postcards from New Zealand that features work by photographers from around the country.

One of the latest additions is the winner of the first Auckland UNESCO City of Music Aotearoa Music Photography Award, Veronica McLaughlin.  Her winning image was a colour photo of Delaney Davidson performing at The Wine Cellar on K Road.

As well as her work as a photographer, Veronica's also the co-owner and publisher of the entertainment website The 13th Floor with Marty Duda.

But, as she tells Lynn Freeman, her first professional music gig was an Elvis Costello concert at the Civic in 2013.

 

1:45  Plan 9's first album - 35 years in the making!

Last year's lockdown saw the virtual closure of our film industry for months, and no films meant no film music.  

But one group of composers turned the lack of outside work to their advantage.   They recorded an album, inspired by life in a pandemic.  

Plan 9 is one of our busiest and most versatile purveyors of music for film, TV, radio, theatre and ballet.  Their range has always been dazzling - they've supported indie films and shorts, they do the music for gigantic Discovery Channel documentaries, they have a long-term association with Peter Jackson - everything from King Kong to the Dwarf Song in The Hobbit.  They also found time to produce the theme for RNZ's Morning Report!

So what happened when they felt like doing something for themselves for a change?  The answer was a  new album - their first, in fact - called The Bewilderness, which they describe as "something different".  Looking at their wildly diverse track-record, should we be afraid?  Simon Morris talks with Plan 9 - Janet Roddick, David Donaldson and Stephen Roche.

The Bewilderness is currently out on Bandcamp and very soon on Spotify and Apple Music.  Here's a video of a track "The Big Sea".

 

 

2:06 The Laugh Track - Ben Crowder

At 3 o'clock, we'll be playing a notable production - a radio adaptation of  Te Pō, a play about one of our greatest playwrights, the late Bruce Mason.   It was written by Carl Bland, and produced by Ben Crowder - a totally fictional tale about the search for a missing Mason, undertaken by three unlikely detectives.

Ben has been working in theatre here for years - not just in partnership with Carl Bland in Nightsong, but at companies like the Auckland Theatre Company, Silo Theatre, Red Leap and The Edge (now Auckland Live).  Ben Crowder is our guest on the Laugh Track.  His choices include the movie Some Like It Hot, Rowan Atkinson, the TV series Schitt's Creek and Tom Sainsbury.

 

2:25  Barnie Duncan - Tap Head

Have you ever looked at a lone, cold tap in a public toilet and wondered what it would say if it could talk?

Nor have we, but that's the basis of comedian Barnie Duncan's show Tap Head, complete with a giant tap that he wears while in character.

Barnie returned to New Zealand in October from Melbourne after six years working the comedy clubs there.  It was during that time that he came up with Tap Head and made the prop.  He brought it into the studio for the interview.

Lynn Freeman asked Barnie about his love of the absurd and surreal.

Bernie Duncan and Tap Head are on at Bats Theatre in Wellington from July 14.

 

2:34 Crime in Ponsonby - novelist Suzanne Frankham

Forget Brokenwood Mysteries, or even Paul Cleave's Christchurch thrillers.   Now Ponsonby is our latest literary crime hotspot.

Expat Suzanne Frankham, who's now based in Australia, has set her first crime novel in a suburb she knew well growing up.

Suzanne had already won awards for her crime-focussed short stories before she wrote Shadow Over Edmund Street.

Her Ponsonby-based detective is Alex Cameron.  He's investigating the death of a woman who recently changed her look, at the same time that her neighbourhood was being gentrified - very inner-city suburbs! 

Lynn Freeman talks with Suzanne Frankham about Shadow Over Edmund Street which is published by Journeys to Words publishing.

 

2:47  Poet - and GP - Glen Colquhoun

When his long time publisher retired, writer Glenn Colquhoun had a big decision to make.  To find a new one, or to enter the thorny world of self-publishing.

The poet and childrens' writer has gone with the latter and it's been a real crash course on issues that he never used to have to think about.

Glenn's latest picture book for children, the small girl who lives next door te kōtiro nohinohi e noho pātata ana, is just out and he joins Lynn Freeman to talk about it and about the publishing life.

Glenn Colquhoun's the small girl who lives next door and his new book of poetry Letters to Young People are both published by Old King Press.

 

3:06 Drama at 3 - Te Pō by Carl Bland

There aren't many upsides to the Covid 19 pandemic but our drama today may be one of them.   When the scheduled tour of the play was cancelled due to the lockdown, it was decided a radio version could be produced.   

There are echoes of Bruce Mason's famous play The End of the Golden Weather throughout Te Pō, written by Carl Bland. 

It's a comic philosophical contemplation on grief, masquerading as a whodunnit about the disappearance of playwright Bruce Mason.

 

Music played in this show

Artist: James Blunt
Song: Postcards
Composer: Blunt-Hector-Mac
Album: Moon Landing
Label:  Atlantic
Played at: 12.12

Artist: Mark Knopfler
Song: Postcards from Paraguay
Composer:  Knopfler
Album: Shangri La
Label:  Mercury
Played at: 12.58

Artist: Eddi Reader
Song: Postcard
Composer: MacColl-Reader
Album: Angels and Electricity
Label: Blancoynegro
Played at: 1.07

Artist: Elvis Costello
Song: Veronica
Composer: McManus-McCartney
Album: Extreme Honey
Label: Warner
Played at: 1.31

Artist: Plan 9 
Song: Rain
Composer: Plan 9
Album: The Bewilderness
Label: Braille Records
Played at: 1.45

Artist: Glen Campbell
Song: Postcard from Paris
Composer: Webb
Album: See you there
Label: Inertia
Played at: 1.58

Artist: Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band
Song: Postcard
Composer: Innes-Stanshall
Album: Cornology Vol. 1
Label: EMI
Played at: 2.05

Artist: Connie Britton & Michiel Huisman
Song: Postcard from Mexico
Composer: Olny-Hadley
Album: The Music of Nashville
Label: Decca
Played at: 2.58

Artist: Ringo Starr
Song: Postcards from Paradise
Composer: Starr-Rundgren
Album: 
Label: 
Played at: 3.58