At the NZ International Comedy Festival in May the Naked Samoans will reunite for the first time in seven years. They join a new generation of makers and comedians. So on Culture 101 we thought it a good time to talk about what's changed, with a panel.
Metalfest4 is at the Collards Tavern on Friday May 3, and alongside headliners from around the country it features a number of heavy locals. Joining visitors Captured Kings and Grym Rhymney is new teenage talent from Waipu - a band called Fork. Attendees can also look forward to seeing Skumlord from the Bay of Islands .
The brand new long awaited home for The Court Theatre officially opens Saturday May 3 in Otautahi Christchurch. It is an impressive $61.4 million purpose-built home for New Zealand's largest professional theatre company. Centre mainstage for the opening production is one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most beloved actors, directors and writers for theatre, film and television. Sir Ian Mune. He was knighted in 2024 in recognition of a 60-year career.
Whether it's a brand like 100% Pure or paintings and film of a rural idyll, we've become familiar in Aotearoa New Zealand with the tension between our depiction of the landscape, and the reality when we consider the effects on it of economic and social development. Similar tensions are at play in what is being billed as the first show of contemporary Japanese art in New Zealand in 20 years:
Renowned lighting designer Angus Muir is launching a new immersive experience in the heart of Tamaki Makaurau next week. He's worked locally and internationally on many recognised installations including Sydney's Vivid, LUMA in Queenstown, Matariki Festival; wowing audiences around the world. Now with Darklight, he's collaborating with different artists, it's the first time Muir is setting his own brief. In the interactive walk-through, divided into three sections, audiences will be surrounded b...
Kiwi actor and comedian Bailey Poaching is one of the stars in the new Netflix comedy series North of North. Set in the small village of Ice Cove in the Arctic Circle, it's a delightful show that centres around a young Inuk woman Siaja who's suddenly left her marriage, rather publicly to reinvent and find herself again. It's an ensemble cast with Poaching playing the local radio DJ and communications coordinator who has moved to the arctic in pursuit of love. It's a small village with most membe...
In the bringing together of art and mental health, Kim Morton is a champion. Following the Christchurch earthquakes, Kim founded Otautahi Creative Spaces, a busy creative community in inner city suburb Philipstown.
Well known interior designer Sonja Hawkins joined Culture 101 to talk about her passion for art, and to share some tips for displaying art in the home.
Ildica Boyd joins Culture 101 from the 9th biennial Easter Art exhibition hosted by Castle Hill Village Creative.
Wellington based artist Michele Bryant joins Culture 101.
Mike Beer aka Ghostcat joins Culture 101 to discuss his The Ghosts on Every Corner exhibition.
Screening Sunday April 27 in Poneke Wellington is FW Murnau's classic 1922 spooky silent film Nosferatu: A symphony of Horror, with a few sensory twists. Not only will it be accompanied by a live score, composed and played by Peter Dasent, this will also be 'scented cinema'. Presented with Australian producers Snivure and Scented Storytelling, patrons are to be given a souvenir card with ten scratch-and-sniff whiffs, ranging from the heaven of fresh flower blossoms to the stagnant and stale sten...
Arts News from across the country with Mark and Angie - for the second week of April 2025.
"I am like the active verb to be and to do," wrote the determined trailblazing early New Zealand painter and writer Emily Cumming Harris. "I am," she added, "too necessary an appendage to be left out.'
Isabel Frey is singer and ethnomusicologist from Vienna, who is attempting to carry the musical tradition of the Jewish Labour Bund, the Yiddish-speaking socialist party in pre-World War II Eastern Europe. During a visit to New Zealand this year she spoke to Nick Bollinger.
On the road between Christchurch and Queenstown, the town of Fairlie often gets called gateway to the Mackenzie Country.
Shawn Simpson is a Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh and joined Culture 101.
The Kaikoura titi, or Hutton's shearwater is a remarkable bird. Endemic to Kaikoura and endangered, it is the only alpine-breeding seabird in the world.
Thousands of students were outside Parliament in Wellington on Friday for the School Strike 4 Climate protest. The core team organising were aged between 14 and 17 and their overarching theme "Don't Fast Track Our Future" was in response to the government's launch in February of a regime aiming to allow major infrastructure projects to be built more quickly and easily. Which makes some arts news this weekend rather timely. Alex Medland has this weekend won multiple national awards for a play des...
The Auckland-based artist shares some of his cultural recommendations.
Foxton's is a small town in the Horowhenua known for its large sandy beach, bustling holiday park, scenic cycling paths and the locally-loved soft drink, Foxton Fizz. But there's more to this charming town than meets the eye. Nestled on the Kapiti Coast, Foxton is a hidden gem brimming with arts, culture, and heritage. Maggie Tweedie dialled up local resident and co-chairperson of the Foxton Dutch Connection Centre, Arjan Van Der Boon who has called Foxton home for many years and is passionate a...
Stories about jewellery art are often susceptible to the use of bad puns. They sparkle, they're precious, they're worth their weight, and so forth. And sure we also can't resist: Karl Fritsch and Lisa Walker truly are the golden couple of Aotearoa New Zealand jewellery art. Indeed they're a dynasty: eldest child Max Walker is also now a jeweller. Yet both of these artists subvert and play with inherited ideas of value and preciousness.
At 15, Broadcast Journalist Indira Stewart landed her first journalism job, telling the story of Polyfest in front of the camera-a moment that surely inspired her to step into her career as a television star in New Zealand media. Her experience performing on the Polyfest stage encouraged Stewart to explore the origins of the world's largest Pacific festival in a new two-part documentary series streaming on TVNZ+. Indira just wrapped up filming Part 2 this week and joins Culture 101's Maggie Twee...
In Kate Camp's new poetry collection Makeshift Seasons she's often to be found in togs, just in or out of the sea. Or, as she writes in one poem, "always driving to coasts in special outfits."
When it comes to innovative performance, designer and theatre maker Martyn Roberts is something of a quiet tour de force. This season he's been juggling work on no less than five new Aotearoa New Zealand shows for the Dunedin Arts Festival.
For our regional wrap today we're visiting Nga Motu New Plymouth to catch up with Theresa Tongi - Pacific Program Coordinator at the Govett-Brewster Gallery and co-curator of Lalaga: Le Hui Fono. Lalaga: Le Hui Fono is an exhibition and events committed to deepening relationships with Pasifika artists and community in Taranaki and across Te Moana nui a Kiwa. Theresa Tongi is a multi-media artist, a mother, and also the founder of Autism Connex - Takiwaatanga Whakamaanawatia!
In poet Amy Marguerite's impressive debut collection over under fed she explores, "the peculiar loveliness and specific loneliness of the human condition."
Today many of us have a fancy camera built into the phones in our pockets. These digital cameras do a lot of the creative work automatically for us. Which has led to a resurgence in interest in the opposite: vintage camera lens with a diverse range of glasses, that can be manipulated manually.
Author, writer and speaker Emily Writes has amassed a huge following online and readership. She first found an audience after writing a blog post in 2015 about struggling to settle her newborn baby at 3am in the morning. It clearly struck a chord. Since then, she's written three books about parenting; the first in 2017 called Rants in the Dark which has been turned into a play. Emily now has a twice-weekly newsletter on Substack with more than 19,000 subscribers. She joins Culture 101 for Fast F...
There have been major changes this week at Whanau Marama New Zealand International Film Festival which is set to kick off in just a few months. The board has disestablished the positions of three key staff: executive director Sally Woodfield, Head of programming Michael McDonnell and part-time finance and HR manager Kirsten Dowsett.
