[What could we do with sustainable practice?] The challenges of making a living out of the performing and screen arts are well known to the industry, but there is something about seeing the facts in black and white that throws the problem into stark relief. I’m talking about research commissioned by Creative New Zealand and NZ on Air released in […]
Size Isn’t Everything This past Saturday (30th Nov 2019), over the course of 14 hours, Christchurch audiences were treated to a lineup of live performance at CoCA art gallery. The Ōtautahi Tiny Performance Festival is a first-ever event, presented by Movement Arts Practice (curated by artistic director Julia Harvie). Appropriately nicknamed Tiny Fest, reflecting its short-lived existence and the intimate scale […]
Ambitious Push to Marry Myth to Modernity It is no easy task to choose a capstone play for the conclusion of an intensive actor’s training program. In pursuit of an elusive equilibrium between adapting a compelling dramatic script and putting on display the diverse talents of a gifted group of emerging actors, for the 2019 cohort The Actors’ Program have […]
Architecture of Happiness “You must change your life” –Rainer Maria Rilke, The Archaic Torso of Apollo It’s great to be wrong sometimes. When I reviewed Emily Perkins’ A Doll’s House (in ATC’s production) the first time around, I found fault with the play and production. It seemed to take place in a nowhere land, despite the New Zealand references. The […]
[Decade Defining] Bold Moves presents a mixed bill of contrasting dance works, each definitive for its decade, each contributing to the living vocabulary of ballet in the modern era. The Royal New Zealand Ballet website promotes the show as a triple bill of ensemble works featuring George Balanchine’s Serenade, Andrea Schermoly’s Stand to Reason, and William Forsythe’s Artifact II. At […]
The Christchurch Arts Festival opens this week. Critic Nathan Joe selects his six must-see events that offer vastly distinct flavours and genres. When you first look at the programme for the Christchurch Arts Festival you might be struck by the lack of international acts. What seems like a glaring omission, upon closer inspection, is an acknowledgement of Ōtautahi’s fiercely creative […]
[Getting Closer] What is connection? It’s one of the many questions stuck to the black curtains of the central playing space of the Town Hall Supper Room, and a provocation in the devising process of The Space Between, a multi-space, multi-disciplinary theatrical installation presented by Cherie Moore and Sheena Irving in the 2019 Auckland Fringe Festival. Connection is one of […]
[Where are the Women at the Waterfront?] During the uproar over the Pop-up Globe’s decision to use an all-male cast while invoking #MeToo in their promotion, Auckland Theatre Company did a Facebook post “Celebrating the amazing women of our 2017-2018 season!” ATC name checked their lead actors – “phenomenal matriarchs of the stage” – Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Alison Bruce and Jennifer […]
[Suffrage Embodied] Royal New Zealand Ballet Artistic Director Patricia Barker commissioned four new ballets in recognition of the 125th anniversary of women’s suffrage in New Zealand, coinciding with the company’s 65th year. Strength & Grace brings together one local and three international choreographers, comprising a balance of contemporary and classical vocabularies who view the season’s provocation through different lenses. Unusually, […]
[All-Stars] Is the original Shrek (2001) film the ideal model of romance for our times? That’s the theory espoused by Murdoch Keane in Tender, the first of three plays in ATC’s Here & Now Festival playing until Monday. Shrek doesn’t go out looking for love. As an Ogre, it’s not something he ever thought he’d find, never thought he’d be […]
Copyright © 2024 | MH Magazine WordPress Theme by MH Themes