Arts
Simon London in 1984: 'It's a visceral, surprising experience'
Kiwi actor Simon London is best known for his role in The Hobbit playing elf Feren but how he's returning to Auckland for the Auckland Arts Festival production of 1984. It's been touring Australia for… Audio
Steve James: from basketball court to court room
Steve James is best remembered as the director of the award-winning "Hoop Dreams" documentary in 1994, inexplicably snubbed for an Oscar nomination. But on March 5 (NZ time) at the 90th Academy Awards… Audio
The Casketeers: putting the fun into funerals
The Casketeers is a local TV show that's been an unexpected runaway success - following the owners and staff of Tipene Funerals. It negotiates the fascinating world of death, grieving relatives and… Audio
'Job creators for the future'
Te Auaha, the New Zealand Institute of Creativity will offer the world's first Bachelor of Creativity. Audio, Gallery
Angus Trumble - The role of the portrait
Angus Trumble is the judge of this year's Adam Portraiture Award, the winner of which will be announced in the coming week. Trumble is the director of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia. He… Audio
Love, Longing, Loss and opera
For many years artists and musicians have been inspired by each other’s work. Significant periods in music history are named after equivalent movements in the visual arts, such as the Baroque, or… Audio
Cinematic storytelling through music
Music has the ability to transport us, to tell stories and to expose the inner workings of the human heart. Wellington Film Society president Chris Hormann chooses music that adds to the story telling… Video, Audio
Upbeat for Friday 23 Feb
We celebrate Wellington Film Society’s 2018 season launch with some cinematic story telling through music with Chris Hormann, then Love, Longing, Loss and opera at the Auckland Art Gallery.
Highly anticipated NZ Festival opens with Kupe
Kupe, the great Polynesian navigator and explorer, as imagined by playwright Apirana Taylor, in one of the first shows of the 2018 New Zealand Festival in Wellington. It's also part of a week long… Audio
'Spectacular' opening expected for NZ Festival
The New Zealand Festival opens tonight in Wellington with a performance of kapa haka, music and theatre on Wellington's waterfront The performance, A Waka Odyssey, has been inspired by the arrival of… Audio
Theatre Critic, Tania Kopytko
Tania Kopytko tells us about a play that's on at Palmerston North's professional theatre, Centrepoint. The Love List. Audio
Film review with Sarah McMullan
Saran McMullan reviews Islands of the Gulf on TV ONE, Fifty Shades Freed, and Black Panther. Audio
Deaf theatre: Hands across the divide
Combining sign with mime and physical theatre, 'Salonica' is the tale of two soldiers who form an unlikely friendship in World War I. The work was developed with an international team of both deaf and… Video, Audio
Hemingway’s first novel and decadent lifestyle on stage
John Collins, founder and director of experimental theatre group Elevator Repair Service, talks about The Select (The Sun Also Rises). It’s a unique adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s classic first… Audio
Upbeat for Wednesday 21 Feb
Hemingway comes to the New Zealand Festival with The Select (The Sun Also Rises). New York director John Collins explains how he’s bringing Hemingway’s world alive & violinist Amalia Hall plays her…
Teeks: heart and so much soul
Northland singer-songwriter, Te Karehana Gardiner-Toi, AKA Teeks, is fast gaining an audience for his smooth, almost old school soulful singing and songs. Video, Audio
Could Instagram be the future of photographic publishing?
The Melbourne-based German photographer Katrin Koenning talks to Kathryn Ryan about how she has exceeded the limits of the everyday camera phone, as well as the unusual way her debut book Astres… Audio
'Kapahaka brings out the best in us'
The small township of Te Teko was the host of the Mataatua Kapahaka Regional Competition, from which the top groups go on to compete at Te Mataini 2019 in Wellington. Te Ahi Kaa asked performers what… Audio
The art of the Berlin underground railway
Berlin's underground train network will be where Serbian/New Zealand artist Biljana Popovic will be spending much of her time as Creative New Zealand's Artist in Residence in the German capital this… Audio
Novelist Stephanie Parkyn's wild colonial adventure
Expat Kiwi writer Stephanie Parkyn's new novel Into the world is so exotic it can only be based on real life! It's the story of a Frenchwoman who disguised herself as a man to escape the French… Audio