The No.8 Wire - Issue 37

Gondwanaland Ministry of Culture
Artists' Information Bureau

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An Electronic Alert for 965 of Wellington's Creative People
Tail-end Octo-numerical Interview: Mark Williams
Endnote: Faulkner and the Nobel



37.00
ARTS CENTRE STUDIO CRAWL

The new Wellington Arts Centre will be holding a studio open house for any interested members of the arts community from 5 to 7pm next Friday, 24 June. The studio crawl will include a look at the spaces and recent work by

Studio artist Sarah Mortlock has a series of new paintings on view in the arts centre gallery through 28 June. A reception will also be held in conjunction with the studio crawl. Please join us after work in the arts centre gallery, and then have a wander up through the above two floors.

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37.01
SARAH MORTLOCK: ABSOLUTES AT THE ARTS CENTRE

‘Between absolutes’ is a new series of paintings by Wellington-based artist Sarah Mortlock. Created in her studio at the new Wellington Arts Centre, this series investigates the relationship between black, white and grey as intermediaries, culminating in an active performance of recession and projection on the painting surface.

“These works continue my exploration into the process of painting and the properties of acrylic paint,” explains Mortlock, who shares her studio with three other emerging artists. “I want to find the limitations of the medium, and bring them into play.”

“This body of work has sprung from my space in new Wellington Arts Centre, where I share one of the larger studio’s with Lynsie Austin, Sarah Bulleid, and Rochelle Stewart-Allen. We are currently busy working towards a group exhibition for later in the year. And some of us are showing in the upcoming Affordable Arts Show (21 - 24 July),” she said.
“I am relishing the experience of working in the arts centre. The space is very easy and comfortable to work in – with good light, wall space and heating! Having access to the on-site gallery and contact with the other artists and people from other creative industries makes this a really exciting place!”

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37.02
AARON BECK: MACRO ASIA AT THE ARTS CENTRE

Wellington’s new arts centre will formally open in late July, but things are already abuzz in the Abel Smith Street location. Local photographer Aaron Beck will install a new exhibition, Macro Asia, in the arts centre gallery in late June. The show, which will be on view from June 30 to July 16, includes twenty of the artist’s exquisite images.
“They are all what I call alternate scenes and portraits,” said Beck, who shot the pictures while travelling in Southeast Asia and China in 2004. Beck’s photographs have been printed to 12 x 18 inch size and block mounted on solid panels. “These are intimate studies of insects, people, and places in Asia, and are my attempt to capture something special about their character and personality.”
One of Beck’s latest projects was shooting all the macro-photography motion picture work for the new Shihad music video, “All the Young Fascists,” currently airing in New Zealand and Australia.
“I also produced animated effects for that using a scanning electron miscroscope from Victoria University, and worked closely with the main producer, Mark Albiston and Sticky Pictures,” he said. The result is a most unusual video in a sea of more mundane and banal music video offerings.
It was a visit to the Sticky Pictures office, now located on the top floor of the Wellington Arts Centre, that solidified the idea for Beck’s first solo gallery exhibition.
“I got my first camera in early 2004, and have been building up a body of work and experimenting in extreme close-up photography ever since,” said Beck. “When I saw the new arts centre and gallery space, I thought it would be an ideal setting for this collection of my recent work.”
Beck, already an established illustrator and graphic artist, sees unlimited potential in his new craft. To establish the right technique, the artist modifies his photographic hardware, adapts lenses, and engineers new lighting effects.
“He’s what you might call super-creative,” said Wellington City Council community arts co-ordinator Eric Holowacz, “always in search of new approaches, interesting subjects, and innovative ways to express the world. Aaron represents the next generation of Wellington artists who will shape and advance New Zealand culture.”
One of the primary objectives of the new arts centre is to support young and emerging artists in Wellington. The facility’s 28 studios are already populated by creative people and contemporary artists, and many of the workshops and meeting rooms have been booked out by creative organisations.
Besides being young, creative, and ambitious, Beck is also a humanitarian at heart. Proceeds from the gallery sales will go to support disaster relief and charities working in Southeast Asia.
“I left Thailand four days before the tsunami, and it would mean a lot to me to give something back to all of those inspiring people and places,” said Beck, “especially after such a massive tragedy.”
Other local businesses who have supported Beck, his exhibition, and relief mission are Wellington Photographic Supplies, The Package, Printlink, Imagelab, Big Image Print, RadioActive, and Wellington City Council.
The public is invited to the exhibition opening of MacroAsia by Aaron Beck on 30 June from 6 to 8pm. The reception will be hosted by local hip-hop visionary and musician Imon Star. The exhibition will be on view at the new Wellington Arts Centre through 16 July.

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37.03
ARMED AT THE ARTS CENTRE

Arm Yourself!

This coming Thursday ( 23 June) from 5-7pm sees the first of an ARMS series of motivating, networking and knowledge-sharing sessions in the ground floor Gallery of the Wellington Arts Centre, Abel Smith Street.

After intensive touring round the country, Mark Cubey and Michael Lockhart of creative enterprise proponents Arms Ltd return to Wellington for regular presentations of provocative weaponry designed to bring creative individuals together and help make the creative capital more than just a buzz phrase.

As well as bringing like-minded players together for mutually beneficial opportunities, talking marketing and money and provoking discussion and laugher, this debut session will look at the government's Digital Strategy (http://www.digitalstrategy.govt.nz),
and what Wellington's creative communities could be doing to make it work for them.

Anyone involved with the making, marketing, promotion or coordination of visual arts, music, literature, photography, design, performance is invited to attend. Admission by koha.

For more info get in touch with ammunition vendor:

Mark Cubey / cubey@arms.org.nz /
Creative Motivator
ARMS Ltd / http://www.arms.org.nz
"Helping artists help themselves."
PO Box 9699, Wellington, Aotearoa
phone 021 2200 400

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37.04
ART HITS THE STREET

A Promenade of Artists
Monday June 27th at 10.00am
Meet: at Midland Park, Lambton Quay.

Aim: to promenade from Traffic Signal Box to Traffic Signal Box and view the murals. The plan is to amble up Lambton Quay, along Willis St to Boulcott St, up Victoria to Dixon, down to Cuba, along Courtenay Place, hop a bus to Newtown (bring a dollar!) and, after looking at the three Traffic Signal Boxes there, to have coffee and celebrate the wonderful contribution that the artists have made to our city.

About the project: Promenade Artists organized the first two Murals on Traffic Signal Boxes in late 2003. Now, at last, we have Stage Two of the scheme up and running. Our ultimate goal is to decorate all the beige Traffic Signal Boxes with works of art and thus, to transform this dullest of items in the built environment into a source of wonder and visual inspiration.

The artists brief is to provide a mural that reflects the environment around the signal box assigned to them. Thus, the art attached to the Traffic Signal Box by Midland Park, reflects the pre-history of the area prior to reclamation with fish and human bones. The artist, Catherine English, says that the project helps her to maintain her energy and enthusiasm for her work by providing a public canvas. She also enjoys the comments people make about her previous work, on the corner of Victoria and Mercer Street, which chronicles the wind-tossed problems with parking and returning books to the library. Catherine has been drawing and painting since she could hold a pencil. She has recently given birth to Paloma, her fifth child. Her work is colourful, vibrant and locates the personal within the wider community.

Justin Duffin, whose work is on the Traffic Signal Box at the intersection of John St and Adelaide Road, says that his painting points towards Newtown and the zoo, with the monkeys expressing his love of animals. Justin is a professional animator and is using the traffic signal box to showcase his skills. Prospective employers please note that he hopes to obtain more work through his participation in the scheme. Justin’s work is quirky, cartoon-like and has a surreal quality that immediately engages the viewer.

The Tree of Life, by Sam Broad, is on the Traffic Signal Box outside Planet Bar in Courtenay Place. Sam’s work refers to the life of the area and his personal remembrances of its recent past as a hub of social activity prior to the current incarnation. The pinball machine, pulp sci-fi, Victorian insanity, pop and folk art are all themes that occur in his bold, striking and colourful work. Sam has an artist’s garret in the attic of Inverlochy Art School where he produces automata (interactive kinetic sculptures) paintings and prints in his inimitable and unique style.

Other artists involved in the project are Jonny de Painter who comments on the consumer society in I cure the wounds of advertising, outside Kirkcaldies. Daniel Mills explores the legend of St George and the dragon on Boulcott St, Davey McGhie celebrates the colourful culture of Cuba St at the north end of the mall while Grant Buist reflects on coffee and the bucket fountain in Jitterati. Lyn Clark’s work on Volunteers Corner depicts The Kete of Knowledge. In Newtown Aaron Frater echoes the busy intersections of the street and Liana Leiataua symbolically connects the traffic island on Riddiford and Constable St to her mural on the Newtown Library building. The artists have been selected to reflect the diversity of people who work in the arts in Wellington.

Supported by the Wellington City Council, Resene Paints, Ulrich Aluminium and Wellington Glass, this project would be impossible without the contributions of Eric Holowacz and Seamus Arnel ( WCC Community Arts officers), Tim Kirby (Traffic Signals Manager for the WCC) and the generosity of the artists.

Contact:
Kristelle Plimmer
105 Wallace Street
Wellington
Ph: 385-0909 Mob: 027 418 3344
Email: kristelle@paradise.net.nz

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37.05
Dearth in Venice

The Biennale has no place in the city of Titian's greatest works, where artists invite comparison with genius

By Jonathan Jones
In The Guardian (June 10, 2005)

The 51st Venice Biennale begins this weekend, and in case you are tempted to visit the most glamorous and purportedly significant event in the lifecycle of the global art world, I have a cautionary tale. I once passionately defended contemporary art, believing with fervour that video installations were the new cinema, Tate Modern would change the world, and that only idea-based art could adequately describe modernity. Then I went to the Biennale.

The problem with the Biennale is that it takes place in Venice, the city in whose Frari church you can see Titian's altarpiece of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, one of the world's supreme works of art, not least in its audacious installation against a bright tall window so that Titian's golden painted heaven blends with the sunlight streaming into the gothic interior. It is the consummation of Venetian art, mysterious, modest and, as you find if you visit near the feast of the Ascension, still serving a community of worshippers.

Art once existed for communities. The most beautiful art that survives was made not for an "art world" - an impossible concept 500 years ago - but for worshippers or citizens. Venice is the greatest monument to this art for the world. In Venice, painters and architects never became celebrities as they did in Florence, the city that invented modern art. I bet you can't name a single Venetian architect, and yet the buildings of Venice - the glinting mosaics inside St Mark's Basilica, the enclosed arc of the Rialto bridge, the tracery facade of the Ca'd'Oro - are unforgettable. John Ruskin, in The Stones of Venice, took this city as his exemplar of an art made to serve rather than crassly to assert wealth and power. But Ruskin was wrong to think this medieval culture was destroyed by the Renaissance. As Titian's Frari altarpiece attests, painters in the 16th century still believed they were working for a greater good. The last desperate assertion of the old ritual use of art is Titian's final work, in the Accademia gallery in Venice - his Pietà, painted in 1576 as an offering to preserve the lives of the artist and his son when plague was ravaging the city. (It failed.)

So I was afraid to go to the Venice Biennale because, quite frankly, I couldn't understand the rationale for having it in Venice. Why not Milan, or Turin? In a modern city I want to see modern art. In New York I want Marcel Duchamp. In Venice I want Titian. There was something weird about the idea of going to Venice and cutting yourself off contemptuously from the tourists traipsing after their Tintorettos to see, instead ... well, this year, the latest photomontages by Gilbert and George. Now, let's think. Tintoretto or G+G? If you find the decision difficult, you need some serious help.

It seems a futile thing, championing the new in a city that is such a great advert for the old, but in recent years the Biennale has been so atrociously curated and so pathetically managed that it would disgrace a far lesser city. The 2003 "edition" was especially horrific. What Donald Sutherland felt as the dwarf turned to face him in Don't Look Now is nothing to what I felt in the vast tedium of the Arsenale group show. It is hard to understand how a curator with the world to choose from can create an exhibition with less interest than an average degree show.

The Venice Biennale is itself rather old, with a history that spans three centuries. When it began in 1895, Henry James had not yet published The Aspern Papers, or Monet painted his greatest Venetian views. So this is not about conservatism versus modernity. It's about what art is for. The Biennale consciously and even physically separates itself from Venice - the pavilions are in gardens at the far tip of the urban archipelago - to inhabit its own space of curating, collecting and discourse, an enclosed fiction. Snobbery plays such an obvious part in this - how different you feel from all those idiots flocking to the Doge's Palace. And wealth is blatantly on show - the art collectors' yachts moored by the gardens.

I suppose the reply would be that it's seductive fun, all this superficiality - lighten up. That would be true if the art was sexy or stylish or interesting. But to me Venice seems a very serious context, where artists invite comparison with genius. Almost everything withers. Chris Ofili, the last occupant of the British Pavilion, wilted. What do you want me to say - that he's better than Bellini? And if he's not to be compared, what's the point?

Most of all, though, it's the deritualised, rationalist, achingly self-conscious nature of art now that clangs like a lead bell in the Biennale gardens. None of it connects with anything beyond this joyless carnival. Once, art could save your life. Titian thought it might save his.
At the Biennale it's just empty.

I know this sounds curmudgeonly. Don't end up like me. If you want to preserve your appetite for Gilbert and George and Belgian video, don't go near Venice this summer.

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37.06
AGAIN WITH VENICE

Filth, blasphemy and big, big stars

Adrian Searle picks his way through the world's largest, most prestigious art show: the Venice Biennale

From the 14 June edition of The Guardian
 
The 51st Venice Biennale opened on Sunday and in the German pavilion the exhibition attendants have broken into a song about it. "Ohhh! This is so contemporary, contemporary, contemporary," they chant, waving their arms.

Thomas Scheibitz's sculptures, which share the pavilion, stand mute, oddly geometric and somewhat recalcitrant in the face of this little performance. Orchestrated by Tino Sehgal, the work is joyful as much as ironic or insolent; it's art about art, about the art world, and about Sehgal himself. He's telling us - or getting his actors dressed as attendants to tell us - both how theatrical and how very now it all is. I wonder why visitors don't form a spontaneous conga, spilling out into the Giardini, the other national pavilions, and the medieval naval buildings and docks of the Arsenale, where the biennale continues, still chanting the litany of the moment.

It is always all so contemporary. Except when it is passe, like the vast, classically designed chandelier hung not with Murano glass baubles but with unused tampons at the entrance to the Arsenale. (How many student works, though not quite so well done, has one seen like this?) Or the wrecked and empty Romanian pavilion, a non-work that Daniel Knorr presents, I take it, as a kind of metaphor for the powerlessness of art and of the nation state in the new world order and the new Europe, but that reminds us only of other such non-happenings that have amused, baffled and annoyed visitors over the past decades.

Read more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1505983,00.html

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37.07
MORE VENETIAN FUN, MORE WOMEN, LESS FLAB
From 16 June edition of The Globe and Mail By Sarah Milroy

At the Venice Biennale, it's the year of the woman. This was the take-home truth for the throngs of international critics, curators, collectors and art dealers who converged on the world's most beautiful city last week.

The Biennale exhibitions are held every two years in a host of national pavilions in the lush Giardini di Biennale, in several rented palazzi around town and in the long, rough-brick 13th-century halls of the Arsenale, a refurbished space that, until the 18th century, served as the centre of the Italian shipbuilding industry.

Customarily, these shows are a real mixed bag, flabby, undisciplined affairs bloated with nepotistic inclusions. This year, many of the national pavilions are very weak (artists for these are chosen by their respective countries), but in the two leading curated group exhibitions, there is little trace of the usual laziness. Curators Rosa Martinez (at the Arsenale) and Maria de Corral (at the Italian pavilion) have pulled together large shows that feel carefully shaped and are filled with interesting newcomers from around the world to a degree that made the show feel truly global for the first time in my 20 years of attending. And there are lots of women.

Read more
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050616.wxvenice16/BNStory/Entertainment/

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37.08
VENICE IN THE NY TIMES
From 15 June edition

Randomly canvassed cognoscenti, bleary-eyed but sanguine after days of looking and schmoozing, gave a respectful shrug to the current, namely the 51st, Venice Biennale.

The 51st Venice Biennale

A Dane pointed me toward the work of a fellow Dane and to another work by another friend, but was cautiously reserved (even by Danish standards) about the festival itself. A Frenchman hemmed and hawed when asked whether anything caught his fancy, settling on Annette Messager's installation (bound marionettes, stuff mechanically jerked aloft like popcorn in a black mesh net, and wind machines making vast yards of red cloth billow like ocean waves) in the French Pavilion.

"Check out Jonas Mekas's films in the Lithuanian Pavilion," a German friend whispered in my ear, as if offering a hot tip for the fifth race at Santa Anita. And two Bulgarians gave reserved nods to several installations in the big international survey of mostly young artists at the Arsenale (among them, a chandelier made of 14,000 tampons by the Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos, and Regina José Galindo's films of herself shaving off her body hair, having her hymen surgically replaced, and protesting violence against women in her native Guatemala by dipping her feet in blood and walking down the street).

Reactions to biennales are always Rashomon-like. That the current festival is generally regarded as pensive and a bit risk-averse is partly a response to the previous biennale, a fiasco that would make nearly anything else seem prudent and sober.

Read more
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/16/arts/design/16kimm.html

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37.09
FRONTISPIECE

Coming up on Front Seat this Sunday evening at 10:30pm
Tune your dial to TV1

ET AL AT THE 51ST VENICE BIENNALE: The furore over the "donkey in a dunny" began a long year ago. And while those involved in choosing and presenting the art collective known as et. al. feel vindicated, editorials and letters to the editor indicate there's still a way to go if they want the artist(s) to win the hearts of those back home. Meanwhile the Prime Minister was assured that et.al. would meet their media obligations in Venice - did they?

Josie McNaught captured the parties, the reviews, the scandals, and the elusive et. al. folk, in Venice, while Oliver Driver asks Creative NZ head Elizabeth Kerr -- what next?

STRONG ADVICE FOR ORCHESTRAS: The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra says it's in need of a serious cash injection unless local councils come to the party. Meanwhile, the NZ Symphony Orchestra got the boost it was asking for in this year's Budget. And across the Tasman, a major report by businessman and orchestra lover James Strong suggested that orchestras in Tasmania, South Australia and Queensland needed radical downsizing to stay afloat. Jeremy Hansen talks to Strong and the orchestras.

WELLINGTON ARTS CENTRE: Wellington City Council has opened a new arts centre to house local artists and arts groups including those made homeless by the removal of cheap accommodation for the Inner-City Bypass. Frontseat finds out who's moved in so far, and how they feel about knocking along beside each other?

ALSO: ARTSVILLE, THIS SATURDAY: Artsville features a warts and all documentary, directed by Emma Robinson OíBrien, from behind the scenes of the Lexus Song Quest, including the final. Saturday 18th, 9.50pm, TV One.

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37.10
SCREENING FUTILITY

World Premiere of Futile Attraction.

The Paramount Cinema in Wellington is hosting a special one-off screening of Futile Attraction on Tuesday 28 June 8.30pm.

Director Mark Prebble has made film history and headlines around the world by funding the post production of his 1st feature film through his website www.makemarksmovie.com. Futile Attraction is finally finished and all are welcome to join in the celebration.

Tickets are available from the Paramount box-office or by phone booking on 04 384 4080. Tickets are $13 each.

Futile Attraction is a mockumentary comedy about a film crew making a Reality TV Show about a couple brought together through a dating agency. However, the couple are so incompatible that the film crew has to manipulate the relationship the get the footage they need for their show.

It features performances from Peter Rutherford, Danielle Mason, Alistair Browning, Glenda Tuaine, Michelle Ang, Lee Donoghue, Desiree Rose Cheer, Paul McLaughlin, Jeremy Randerson, Bevin Linkhorn, Richard Chapman, Lauren Jackson, Dra McKay and Christopher Brougham with cameos from Taika Cohen, Adam Gardiner, Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie.

Free giveaway. The first subscriber to Number 8 Wire to e-mail makemarksmovie@xtra.co.nz will receive a complimentary double pass to Futile Attraction.

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37.11
PAR THREE

What if somebody commissioned 18 Wellington artists to create 18 new works of environmental, ephemeral, or longer-term public art for this place? What would you propose? Click and think…

http://www.wellington.govt.nz/services/berhgolf/index.html

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37.12
THE NEW AT BARTLEY NEES

Our next exhibition opens on
Tuesday 21 June 2005, 5.30pm
Please join us and the artist at the opening
2 Blair Street, Wellington

Suggestions of colonisation and pollination abound in Niki Hastings-McFall's boundary pushing new exhibition/installation which is abloom with ideas about the spread of culture and the riotous vitality with which Polynesian peoples have responded to life in New Zealand. We have had a great response to Niki's large work Parataiso II in our Blair Street opening exhibition. In her new show, the first solo show in our new gallery, Niki, who started her career as a jeweller, takes another major step forward with her work moving off the wall to more fully occupy the gallery space. Do come and see what is sure to be an exciting, colourful and expansive exhibition.

http://www.bartleyneesgallery.co.nz/

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37.13
MAKING TRACKS

What are Wellington’s leaders and visionaries thinking about our transport and commuting hubs? What cities are doing where rail, transport, and people converge…

In the past decade forward-looking and fast-moving cities around the world have been investing in railroad stations ‹ or "intermodal transportation centers," to use the vogue terminology. Here are some of the most ambitious, both built and on the boards.

UN Studio , the Dutch firm led by Ben van Berkel and Caroline Bos, is planning the mammoth Arnhem Central . When finished, the 1.7-million-square-foot station will accommodate not just rail, trolley, and bus lines but also shops, offices, and apartments. In true Dutch style, the garage will house 1,000 cars and 5,000 bicycles.
http://www.unstudio.com/html/proj_all.htm

Designed by the partnership of Wilkinson Eyre Architects ,Stratford Station, in East London, links four rail lines. The steel-framed, aluminum-clad, quarter-ellipse roof is designed to enhance natural ventilation and provide a contemporary look for a redeveloping neighborhood.
http://www.wilkinsoneyre.com/main.htm

Scheduled to be completed in 2006, Lehrter Station (images here), designed by von Gerkan, Marg + Partners, will be among the greenest in Europe, with photovoltaics integrated into its south-facing glass roofs. It will also be among the biggest, handling more than 200,000 passengers per day, 30,000,000 per year.
http://www.gmp-architekten.de/2projects/lbb/lbb.htm

The Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava has described his spectacular World Trade Center Transportation Hub (images here ), which will connect subway, rail, and ferry lines, as consisting of "glass, steel, and light." Some of those materials aren't cheap: Unveiled a year ago and scheduled to be completed at the end of the decade, this Ground Zero station is budgeted at $2 billion.
http://www.panynj.gov/AboutthePortAuthority/PressCenter/TheLatestatthePortAuthority/

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37.14
SOUND IMPROVEMENT
From the 15 June edition of the Telegraph By Serena Davies

American sound artist Bill Fontana has been recording the Millennium Bridge across the Thames outside Tate Modern. "Shall I show it to you?" he says. He means the recording, not the bridge. "The structure's really musical. You can't hear it with your ears but if you use accelerometers, which are what structural engineers use to measure vibration, there's a very interesting sound developing."

Enter the weird world of sound art. As in King Lear when the blinded Gloucester learns to "see feelingly", so sound artists, with the help of a little technological wizardry, teach us to see aurally. It's a melding of the senses, an opening of Blake's doors of perception.

For decades, only the perceptions of an esoteric group of innovators and their friends have been getting any wider. "For a long time, sound was the poorer cousin of the other mediums. It's taken a long time for the art establishment to accept it," says Lina Dzuverovic-Russell, UK-based sound-art curator and writer. Fontana calls his craft "the ugly duckling" of the art world.

Yet all this is changing fast. Sound art is moving into the mainstream...

Read more
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2005/06/15/basound15.xml&sSheet=/arts/2005/06/16/ixtop.html

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37.15
DANCE OUTLAWS

Our most precious treasures are miniatures – little boxes of precious dust – hidden and squeezed into and out of sight – brought out to air occasionally.

“…an Alice and wonderland world - with dancers squirming inside…tender and lyrical, like swans arching and folding” – The Listener, June 2004 

“Performers perch on plinths and pose on pedestals as living breathing objects.  They are boxed into tiny spaces like insects in a specimen case or stacked onto shelves like clothing waiting for summer to return.  They then move through space, in and out of one another’s arms, imprinting the air with a fleeting presence.”  -    City Mix, 2004

“Dance is so untouchable…You can’t script it like theatre and you can’t film if.  The only way you can experience it is to go to a live show.”  NZ  Herald, 2004
 
Outlaw Creative is proud to announce the national tour of MINIATURES. Seven of New Zealand’s most talented young dancers take this surreal and beautiful dance show to a wider NZ audience following the outstanding success of the 2004 premiere. Featuring Malia Johnston, Sarah Sproull, Jacob Sullivan, Julia Milsom, Paul Young, Maria Dubrowska and Liana Yew. 
 
MINIATURES PLAYS
Auckland – Concert Chamber June 23-25th
Wellington – Te Whaea July 6-9th
Christchurch – Grand Hall July 28-30th 
Bookings: Ticketek

Outlaw Creative is pleased to offer you a special FRIENDS OF OUTLAW CREATIVE price for the Auckland and Wellington seasons of Malia Johnston's - Miniatures. Buy three full price tickets and get one full price ticket free! This offer is only available for pre-booked tickets by phone or at the Ticketek booth.  You will need to mention the password BLUE to the ticketek sales staff.
 
The offer is open until Monday the 20th of June
for the Auckland season, and until Friday the 1st July
for the Wellington season.

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37.16
LONGING

http://www.longnow.org/

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37.17
SLOW DOWN

http://www.slowlab.net/index.html

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37.18
JUMP AND JIVE

Musical Babies and Tots at Wellington's New Arts Centre

Wellington's musical little ones have a special place, every Thursday morning, at the new Wellington Arts Centre. The popular Musical Babies and Musical Tots programmes began on May 12, and offers weekly sessions for parents and children who want to explore music, dance, movement, and creative play.

Music educator Sarah Conroy will be running the classes, and she can be contacted now about enrolment and participation. The classes offered at the new Wellington Arts Centre, 61-63 Abel Smith Street, are as follows:

Thursdays at 10:00-10:30 am
Musical Tots: a fun music and movement class for children aged 18 months to
4 years.

Thursdays at 10:45-11:15 am
Musical Babies: a fun class of singing and finger play for babies aged 12 to
18 months.

Thursdays at 11:30-12:00 am
Musical Babies: enjoy a fun and close time with your baby in a class designed to start your child off on their musical journey. For babies aged 6 to 12 months.

Fees for term two are $58.50 for nine sessions or $52.00 for PTL holders.
Musical Babies and Tots classes begin on Thursday 12 May 2005 and run until Thursday 7 July 2005. To register your place for next term, please contact Sarah Conroy on 976 2754 or by email to sarah_mike@paradise.net.nz. Class sizes are limited and pre-registration is essential.

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37.19
LIKE BUTTER

http://www.butterpaper.com/index.php

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37.20
DEVLISHLY GOOD

The Vaudevil Cabaret is impure late night fun, an entertaining smorgasbord that transforms every minute. An unexpected cascade of stimulation - from the glitz and insight of drag queen biblical sex education to the subversive decadence of belly-dancing clowns.
The Vaudevil Cabaret mixes gender-fuck with gorgeousness, stand up with stalkers, trapeze with tap dance. There are no renditions of "Memory" in this shimmering twisted world - unless the singer is consumed by rabid cats.
Brought to you by circus folk, drag stars, singers, actors, clowns, designers, artists, frocks and dancers of every persuasion the Vaudevils guarantee to put a little deviltry into your weekend.
Bats Theatre, 1 Kent Terrace
10.30pm Friday 22 and Saturday 23 July
$15/$10 book on 801-4175

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37.21
THEATRE MILITIA
presents

BOUNCING WITH BILLIE
Written by Felix Preval and Fergus Collinson
Directed by Rachel Lenart
Sound Design by Sstimuluss
 
"I'm listening closely, it takes all of me, every ou nce and all my focus to hear"
 
Theatre Militia presents 'a play on the words of Fergus Collinson' - "one of Wellington's best loved artists, the indefinable jazz painter." Bouncing With Billie, opening at BATS Theatre on July 7th is a devised work based on and created with one of this city's most unique personalities. This fragmented portrayal of memory captures moments of intimacy and beauty as a lover withers but passion blossoms. A celebration of love, life, loss and jazz brought to life on the stage through poetry, paint, music and media - "Two years, one month and three and a half days" in love.
 
Director Rachel Lenart and writer/performer Felix Preval were accosted by Fergus backstage at BATS last year after the company's debut production Wordvirus. Fergus presented his book, Bouncing With Billie, to the company, from which the initial concept was drawn. Since then, Fergus has become more than "the man in the front row with the bright orange hair, a torch and a copy of our script" - he has become Theatre Militia's inspiration.
 
Bouncing With Billie is in part a tribute to all New Zealand AIDS sufferers and their carers. It is a chance to reflect on the progress of the gay movement in this country, exposing the absurdity and irrationality of homophobia and our need to support and further this community's fight for equality. "The blatancy of prejudice against gays serves as a perfect analogy for human rights violations everywhere" - Director Rachel Lenart.
 
Theatre Militia return to BATS with their third work and biggest crew to date. Felix Preval (Wordvirus, Auditor!!) Sam Bunkall (Who's Afraid of the Working Class) and Peter Hills (I Once Was lost) are joined on stage by Jazz diva Katherine Tyree singing Billie Holiday with musical contribution from Sstimuluss.
 
Exploring sexuality and disability – Fergus has been Deaf since childhood, Theatre Militia hope to contribute something pertinent to the national debate surrounding equality. As opposition to the civil union bill demonstrates, this country is not as tolerant as some of us like to believe. However, this show takes place within the subjective confines of memory; our story celebrates the love between two men at the height of the AIDS crisis in New Zealand while the lovers stride forward none the less. Blind as love is ever.
 
"I'm seeing the only way to make something special of life is to grab it while it's happening." – Fergus Collinson
 
  
BOUNCING WITH BILLIE
9pm 7 – 16 July 2005
(no shows Sunday Monday)
Tickets $12/15
BATS ph : 802 4175
 
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37.22
BALLETIC REVIEWS FROM CISCO

The Royal New Zealand Ballet drew a mixed response from reviewers at its San Francisco International Arts Festival debut.

The Wellington-based company performed three works - Milagros and The Celebrated Soubrette by Javier de Frutos and A Million Kisses to My Skin by David Dawson - on June 3 and 4.
San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Rachel Howard was most impressed by The Celebrated Soubrette, saying "at the work's heart was a sad coarseness that the dancers captured pungently". But Milagros "waned in the middle" and A Million Kisses to My Skin had a cast that "appeared coached to mug like cheerleaders".
"It was hard to know what to make of the Royal New Zealand Ballet after this first US outing. What lingered ultimately was a curiosity provoked by the company's obvious good nature and range."
Allan Ulrich of website Voice of Dance said the ballet company was a "fresh, ingratiating and versatile ensemble".
Read more
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3312411a1860,00.html
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37.23
DANCE MOVES
Kia ora koutou

I am the new Dance Your Socks Off! Co-ordinator here at Wellington City Council, taking over from Andy Nelson.

It's great to see your registrations to be part of the Festival coming in - it is shaping up to be a fantastic programme! I am keeping registrations open until this Friday 17 June, so if you have not filled in your form yet please email it to me as soon as you can. And remember your event can be a simple as opening up a class to the public to highlight what you do.

Also if you have good print quality images I can consider for inclusion in the programme please let me know - a great image is really valuable in terms of marketing your event.

I will be working on Dance Your Socks Off part time until the beginning of August, when I go full time. I am in the office all day on Mondays and Tuesdays and also Wednesday mornings. If you have any questions or there is anything I can help you with just let me know - I am here to help! My contact details are at the end of this email.

If you are keen to be involved in the Courtenay Central Dance Fest this year you will need to register soon.

Best wishes

Kirsten Kelly
Dance Your Socks Off! Coordinator
Recreation Wellington
Wellington City Council
101 Wakefield Street
PO Box 2199, Wellington
Phone: 04 801 3564
Fax: 04 801 3635
kirsten.kelly@wcc.govt.nz

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37.24
STRIKE A POSE: WHEN THE WORLDS OF ART AND FASHION COLLIDE

Panel discussion to celebrate the final day of ‘Bridget Riley: Paintings and Preparatory Work 1961-2004’ at City Gallery Wellington

Featuring Doris de Pont, Denise L'Estrange Corbet & Richard Maloy
Chaired by Claire Regnault

Sunday 26 June, 2pm

Bridget Riley’s black-and-white paintings triggered an ‘op art’ fashion craze in the 1960s. 40 years on, does contemporary art still influence what appears on the catwalk? Should haute couture designers be classified as artists themselves? And how might this affect how their work is construed? Join chair Claire Regnault with fashion designers Denise L'Estrange Corbet and Doris de Pont and multi-media artist Richard Maloy as they discuss the intersection of the art and fashion worlds by delving into the trends, textiles and art-fashion collaborations of today.

Sunday 26 June is the last day to see ‘Bridget Riley: Paintings and Preparatory Work 1961-2004’, described by one reviewer as “one of the most important solo shows to be seen in New Zealand for many years”.

Using a simple vocabulary of colours and abstract shapes, Bridget Riley produces paintings that shimmer and dance, generating sensations of light, movement and space, and creating emotional and physical experiences for viewers. Bridget Riley was been personally involved in the selection of works for this exhibition, and many of her pivotal works are included in the show.


WHAT: Panel discussion on art and fashion, featuring Doris de Pont, Denise L'Estrange Corbet and Richard Maloy, chaired by Claire Regnault
WHEN: Sunday 26 June, 2pm
WHERE: City Gallery Wellington Cinema
BOOKINGS: No bookings necessary, but seating is limited.
COST: Exhibition admission charges apply: $7 Adult, $5 concession

For more information, please contact:
Robyn Walker, Public Programmes Co-ordinator, City Gallery Wellington
T: 04 801 3987 E: robyn.walker@wcc.govt.nz

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37.25
BRAZIL'S MINSTREL POETS
From the 14 June New York Times
By Larry Rohter

CARUARU, Brazil - They are the bards of the backlands, traveling with their poems from town to town and market to market. Practitioners of an art form that originated in medieval Europe and is now mostly obsolete elsewhere, they nonetheless continue to thrive here.

"Cordel" is the name given to their craft, which developed in this arid outback of northeast Brazil, in isolated peasant communities that valued the spoken or sung word over the written. As befits a do-it-yourself, indigenous art form, the same balladeers who create the poems, inspired by current events or ancient legends, are usually the ones who print, illustrate and hawk them.

"Like so many other folk forms, cordel transforms an old vocabulary to fit new situations," said Candace Slater, author of "Stories on a String" and professor of humanities at the University of California, Berkeley. "What has not changed is that cordel poets are still writing for the group, and that what they write continues to touch a nerve in the people of northeast Brazil, no matter where they happen to be living."

"Cordel" literally means string or twine, a reference to the way the cheap paper booklets containing the poems, with up to 32 pages, are hung at markets or newsstands. Verses typically have six lines, and though a variety of rhyme scheme are permitted, the most common is probably a-b-c-b-d-b.

Originally, cordel was an extension of the European troubadour tradition.
Cordel poets and singers would roam the vast interior of northeast Brazil, an area larger than Alaska and home today to 50 million people, showing up at markets such as the one held here every Saturday, or at fairs, saints'
day commemorations and other public events, to recite their ballads, bringing both news and entertainment to peasants who were often illiterate.

"Popular literature in verse form developed here in Brazil as in no other place in the world," said Audálio Dantas, a collector of cordel and curator of "A Century of Cordel," an exhibition that was held in São Paulo in 2001.
"The cordel pamphlet was for decades practically the only vehicle of information that the people of the backlands could count on."

But with the rise of radio, then television and now of the Internet, the main focus of cordel gradually shifted to amusing the reader or listener.
Nevertheless, when a lion devoured a young child at a circus near here not long ago, the incident quickly became the subject of a cordel, and within days of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, cordel pamphlets interpreting the event were circulating in the hinterland.

"We are minstrel poets because what we write is in rhyme and comes from our imagination," said José João dos Santos, who under the pen name Azulão, or Big Blue, has written and published more than 300 cordel titles. "But I'm a journalist too, bringing the news to the poor and the unlettered in a form that they understand and trust more than newspapers or television."

Read more
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/14/books/14bard.html

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37.26
PHOENIX FLAMES UP
From the 16 June edition of the NZ Herald
By Rebecca Barry

When NME editor Conor Nicholas visited New Zealand in March, he had some sage advice for Phoenix Foundation's Sam Flynn Scott.

"He's like, 'Look dude, you've got to grow the beard back, you've got to be a fully bearded band. It would work really well if you came to England and you were this incredibly hairy band. I'd really advise that'."

Scott, the band's singer, guitarist and chief songwriter, can scoff with good humour. Sure, like his bandmates he is a bit on the woolly side but he has done his fully bearded days. And he is not about to pander to the superficial wants of the music industry.

It was scary enough signing to a major label this year, although he admits he has been pleasantly surprised about how it has all worked out. The band still have creative control, crucial when your music is as unconventional as theirs.

Those who own their albums Horsepower and its follow-up Pegasus, will know it is almost impossible to peg them down. Their songs veer from psychedelic pop to country-tinged rock and epic soundscapes, drawing on an eclectic repertoire that ranges from Toto to Van Morrison and Quincy Jones.

While some of their songs are simple, folksy guitar numbers, Hitchcock, the track that won a bNet award for best unreleased song, would certainly be at home as the soundtrack to a dark, psychological film, as would the epic Cars of Eden, which ends with a saxophone spluttering like a dying animal.

Read more
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=6&ObjectID=10331076

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37.27
UP AT ARO ARTS

91 Aro Street provides an outlet for independent arts of any sort we can in Wellington, New Zealand. We currently have comics, tapes, CDs, books, films, paintings, photographs, sculptures, clothing, handcrafts, pictures, drawings, installations and glass work. We look to promote, distribute and encourage all kinds of independent art.

91 Aro Street is open Wednesday to Sunday from 11am to 6pm, and for advertised events. Don’t miss these upcoming exhibitions…

MICHELLE JENSEN exhibition 6 - 18 september
MELISSA ROYCE exhibition 23 august - 4 september
ROBYN KENEALY exhibition 9 - 21 august
LENSLESS photography group exhibition 19 - 31 july
preview: 5:00pm 18 july
KARREN DALE poetry book launch dates to be confirmed
TIM WYBORN retrospective exhibition 4 - 11 July

www.aroarts.org.nz

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37.28
Double Dose

And glance with both eyes at the Janne Land Gallery…

14 June to 9 July: Heather Straka: Paradise Gained
12 to 30 July: Gary Waldrom: New Paintings

http://janneland.co.nz/index.php

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37.29
ROARING ALONG

Wellington’s Roar! Gallery is showing a slew of new works…

Ingrid Jenner
“In the Limelight”
&
Geoffrey gaskell
“The curate’s egg”
Landscapes & ceramics
&
Work from Rimutaka prison
“Premier”

The artists’ reception will be held at the gallery from 5 - 7pm. Please come along. The exhibitions run from 9 - 19 June 2005. For details…

Roar! gallery
22 Vivian Street
Wellington
roargallery@paradise.net.nz
385-7602

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37.30
NOAH’S FLOOD

Noah Landau: A Short Retrospective: 1998-2005
Mazzola Gallery, top of Plimmer Steps, off Lambton Quay.
Hours: Tues-Fri noon-2pm, Thurs 5-6.30pm, Sat 11am-3pm
Till July 2

Before coming to New Zealand in the early 1980s, Noah Landau was an intimate member of the post-World War II British art scene which is presently finding new currency, as witnessed by the Bridget Riley exhibition at City Gallery.

Landau is a very painterly painter, with a rich understanding of the medium. In technique he has strong affinities with French nineteenth century painting, in particular.

The works in this exhibition, completed in the Wairarapa, Wellington and Patea, display his rich use of colour, and express both his interest in the formal aspects of painting and the human condition through landscapes and portraiture.

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37.31
BEEP, ZONK, BLIP, BLEEP

Calling All Robots!

Is the title of my current exhibition of automata that runs until Sat, July 2nd at Idiom’s new gallery space, level 2, 147 Cuba St (above Peter McLeavey Gallery). It’s a jolly good looking show which I am very proud of and explains what I’ve been up to over the last 3 months.

You can interact with the tiki robots thereby experiencing the puppet master thrill of megalomania. After tiring yourself out you can read my poncy pontifications on the subject and become illuminated.
All works are viewed at the speed of light and subject to brief spells of fame on my website: www.sambroad.co.nz. Stay tuned.

Protect your loved ones by forwarding this email to those who stand to gain by this information: there exists a robot army, the people must be told!

Kia ora, Sam
www.sambroad.co.nz 
9731793
3 Inverlochy Place
Te Aro
Wellington

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37.32
PHOTO ACTION

Hi from James at Photospace gallery
 
You are invited to attend the opening of two new Photospace exhibitions:
- Belinda Brown, Vive la Difference
- Jodi Ruth Keet,  Permanence
 
Exhibitions open on Wednesday, 15 June, 5pm-7pm.
Both run until 8th July, see www.photospace.co.nz/expo094.htm
Jodi, Belinda and I hope to see you here,
Thanx,

James Gilberd
Photospace studio/gallery
1st floor, 37 Courtenay Place
Wellington, New Zealand
382 9502
027 444 3899
Gallery hours: 10-4.30 Monday-Friday
11-3 Saturdays, closed public holidays

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37.33
HUMDRUM

Campbell Kneale at enjoy gallery
Artist talk: Wednesday June 22 6pm
June 15 - July 1 

Campbell Kneale is a Lower Hutt resident whose cross-platform artworks have focused on the everyday mysticism of the New Zealand suburban experience and our mundane connections to 'the divine'.

Most well known for his 'drone' and 'noise' work under the name Birchville Cat Motel, Kneale has for the last decade successfully fused a combination of late '60s minimalism, lo-fi post rock, the blackest of the black metal, and earthy ethnological drone into shimmering walls of transcendent fuzz and buzz that somehow finds common ground between the humble refrigerator-hum and the universe-resonating shriek of Stockhausen's most bombastic symphonies.

HUMDRUM picks up on many of Kneale's favourite themes, translating them into a physical space. An ever-shuffling collection of glacial drones, cutlery clunks, and mysterious incantations of malfunctioning consumer electronics, recorded around the house and played back in random sequences, that combine into a magical/scientific blur of levitational hocus-pocus. HUMDRUM is the soul-splitting chant of ecstatic boredom.

Enjoy Public Art Gallery
Level one, 147 Cuba Street
Wellington
 
P: 04 384 0174
E: enjoy@enjoy.org.nz
W: www.enjoy.org.nz

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37.34
ARTIST SPACE, JUST OFF CUBA

Local artist Daniel Nagels is taking over a creative space at 13 Garrett Street, and is looking for a dozen emerging artists (between the ages of 20 and 30), to share the collective space. His plans include studios, gallery, and performance space, with each artist paying about $60/week. He’s set up a simple application process for those who are looking for work space and are interested in this bold vision. To learn more, contact Nagels on 027-466-6337 or Daniel.nagels@gmail.com and find out how he’s making the creative city.

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37.35
EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT ARTS VENUES

Including floorplans, web links, history, and technical information for those wanting to produce or present a live event…

http://venueweb.co.nz/

Wellington venues and theatres are listed and detailed here

http://venueweb.co.nz/north/10_wellington/10-wellington.htm#festival_venues

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37.36
A STRIKING COLLABORATION

Slaves To The Rhythm will premiere at Te Whaea: 17 June - 25 June (no show 20 June); 17, 18 June & 21 - 25 June at 8.00pm; 19 June at 4.00pm only Venue: Te Whaea Theatre, 11 Hutchison Road, Newtown, Wellington

“Slaves to the Rhythm” brings together New Zealand's most outstanding percussionists Strike and 2nd & 3rd year contemporary dance students from the New Zealand School of Dance in a performance of sheer vigour. Following the sell-out success of “If Skin Could Talk” in 2003, this year's production will pulsate with choreographic innovation and high-energy percussion.
Most dances begin with a musical score, but with Slaves to the Rhythm the choreography and the music have been created simultaneously. The members of Strike have composed original music for the three works.
Murray Hickman, one of the founding members of Strike comments, "Strike is excited to be reunited with the NZSD for this year's choreographic season. So far everything is coming together well and we're all feeling energized about the show".
Slaves to the Rhythm comprises three separate works - Energy Transfer, Dreamscape and Chambers of Emotion.
The first work, Energy Transfer, focuses on the internal and external forces that change and shape human relationships - how does the tempo of life affect the way we relate to one another?
Rachelle Hickson, a 3rd year contemporary dance student, is one of a group of three student choreographers collaborating on Energy Transfer, "In this piece the dancers become the musical 'instruments' and are orchestrated in movement by the musicians", says Rachelle.
Dreamscape is a surreal physical and musical landscape that at times can be intoxicatingly beautiful, bizarre and frightening. Salvador Dali's paintings have been a source of inspiration for this piece.
Chambers of Emotion explores the sensitive, yet vulnerable nature of the heart. It asks the question, 'Does the heart rule our emotions or do our emotions rule the heart?'
An acting student and three Entertainment Technology students from Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School are also involved in the production. The Entertainment Technology students will collaborate with the dance students to design the lighting. Gillie Coxill, winner of Best Costume Design at the 2004 Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards, will provide even more visual impact with her specially created and exquisite costume designs.
"This is a unique learning experience for the students," says Wendy Wallace, Head of Contemporary Dance at the School. "Inviting professional artists to work alongside emerging student talent is a true reflection of the diverse training the New Zealand School of Dance has to offer. The 2005 choreographic season is a response to audience requests to enjoy again the combined efforts of Strike and the dance students."
Slaves to the Rhythm has a cast of 25 plus 3 collaborators: 19 dancers from the NZ School of Dance, 1 acting student & 3 entertainment technology students from Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School and 5 members of Strike Percussion.

Tickets: $20 - Adult/Waged, $15 - Concession/Student/Unwaged
389 9056 (automated line) or 380 1715
www.tewhaea.org.nz

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37.37
BUCKDANCER’S CHOICE

Acoustic Routes, Wellington’s leading folks music club, presents a monthly singaround at the new Wellington Arts Centre, 61 Abel Smith St. The toe-tapping also includes regular live performances by local and visiting folk musicians. If you are itching for some good ol’ pickin’ and grinnin’, contact: gerard.hudson@xtra.co.nz or see:

http://www.acousticroutes.org.nz/

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37.38
CREATIVE CROWNS AT THE ARTS CENTRE

To celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the Cancer Society, Wellington Division, local creative business BodyFX is creating a book with 75 baldheads painted in different designs. But they need you! All profits of the painting and the sales of the published book will go to the Cancer Society Wellington.
So…If you are bald already or want to shave your head for it …
This is the great opportunity to do something special!

How to get your head in the book…

Get sponsors (to cover donation, see below)
Come to the Shave-n-Paint day at Wellington Arts Centre

Saturday 16 July from noon to 2pm

Bring a lot of supporters
Fill in a registration form
Choose a design from the book or bring your own
Have your head (shaved and) painted on the spot
Have your photo taken

Sponsorship/Participant Donations:
Bring your own design or Logo: sponsorship $50
Choose one of our designs: sponsorship between $10 and $50

To learn more, contact:
Organised by BodyFX Wellington Ltd.
www.bodyfx.org.nz
phone 0800 022555

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37.39
LETTER FROM SINGAPORE

I am pleased to inform you that we have just launched the Creative Youth Xchange (www.creativeyouthxchange.com).  In its second year, this platform aims to showcase the best creative projects from Asia Pacific. This year, there will be a 2-week workshop where finalists are flown to Singapore to further develop their projects with mentors.  Details as below.
 
We have expanded the region to include New Zealand this year and we hope that there will be a high level of participation from the many creative practitioners in the land of the Middle Kingdom.  =) I would be most grateful if you could help to disseminate the information or let me know the organisations in your respective countries that we should send the information to.  Thank you for your support in advance.
 
Please let me know if you need any more information.
 
Thank you very much.
Yam Keng

DETAILS:

Title: Creative Youth Xchange @ Gallery Hotel
Organiser: Creative Industries Singapore / Gallery Hotel Closing Date: 9 Sept 05
 
Submit your most creative ideas based on the theme 5 Walls: Defying Definitions and stand a chance to be flown to Singapore to realize your dreams in an exciting and intensive 2-week workshop on a three-dimensional canvas - the rooms of Gallery Hotel, mentored by leading creative individuals in this novel workshop. The final winners selected by international creative icons stand to win prizes worth more than S$20,000 (approx US$12,500). This unique 2005 edition of Creative Youth Xchange is co-presented by Creative Industries Singapore and the Gallery Hotel. More information on Creative Youth Xchange can be obtained from the website: www.creativeyouthxchange.com.
 
Theme: 5 Walls: Defying Definitions
 
" White space. Negative space. Empty space. Is space empty, passive and constraining? Or is space a fluid concept and a medium full of possibilities?
 
Bedroom. Kitchen. Study. Office space. Hotel room. Waiting room. We assign utilitarian purposes to spaces. Is the design by the creator of the space final? Or does space evolve organically with its users and inhabitants?
 
Walls. Floors. Ceilings. Is that all that shapes a space? How can light, colours, smells, textures and sounds be designed to evoke the emotions, memories and experiences of users?
 
We are seeking youths from all fields and backgrounds, anyone passionate about the theme, to go beyond exploring a space as a space. Challenge yourself to address these questions and express your ideas through realizable concepts, plans and prototypes.
 
Contact: Gary Ang
gary_ang@mica.gov.sg
+65-68379904
  
BAEY Yam Keng :: Director, Creative Industries Singapore :: +65-6837
9835(DID) | +65-68379493(Fax)
http://www.mica.gov.sg

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37.40
STRANGERS NO MORE

FROM JADE ERIKSEN DIRECTOR OF
Yatra (Winner Hot new thing and Best Ensemble Fringe Festival 2004, Chapman Tripp nominee)
Stamping Grounds (Best Fringe show 2005)
COMES A NEW WORK

MIGRANT NATION
Stories of our migrant past: we were strangers once
 
FEATURING:
Aya Al-Muri, Erina Daniels, Jessie Alsop, Mohamed Osman, Tahi Mapp-Borren, Chris O'Connor, Jade Daniels, Katlyn Wong, Rashmi Pilapitiya, Vaughan Slinn

WELLINGTON                              AUCKLAND 
24TH – 27TH June                        1st – 5th July
Tararua Tramping Club             St Benedcicts Priory
4 Moncrieff Street                    St Benedicts Street
                                       
Tickets: $10/$15/$20
For more information or bookings contact
migrantnation@gmail.com
BOOK NOW


MIGRANT NATION PROJECT: A theatrical exploration of New Zealand’s migrant identity

By recalling the rich and diverse human stories of migration to New Zealand we discover that from the beginning New Zealand has a history of being a land of refuge and welcome to those in need.

Concept - A theatrical exploration of New Zealand as a nation made up of a rich tapestry of cultures and backgrounds. Over the generations many of those who have come to our shores have done so under duress and in much need, and often to escape direct threats to their life or freedom. Those people have gone on to greatly repay our culture and community for the refuge they were offered. Their children and grand children now have kiwi accents and some might not even themselves have realised or considered that they are descended from ‘refugees’.

Objective - The work will investigate and illustrate the contexts and circumstances of migration to these islands in our past and present. It reflects on New Zealand as a country which values human rights, offers safe haven to those in need, and is much the richer for this fact. The roots of the pioneering ‘Kiwi’ spirit we take pride today can be traced back to our migrant ancestors and the political and cultural environments that led them to make the journey to these islands. Through reflecting on the courage, strength, adaptability and vision these people had in the past and juxtaposing them with experiences of migrants and refugees in the present, the work seeks to breakdown and diffuse negative views of newcomers to our land – particularly refugees.

In the ‘Post 9/11’ environment these questions of the ‘other’, specifically with regards to immigration, have evoked fear and suspicion which has often distorted our perspective on individuals in need. This is an opportunity to question these generalisations and bring people closer to a discussion based on commonality not difference. Theatre can be used as a social tool to express New Zealand’s identity as anything but static or ‘settled’ but rather an identity influx and growing.

The Performance - a devised theatrical collaboration that weaves together personal histories, political events, media representation and questions of national identity with the use of installation, light, music, song, puppetry, movement and dialogue.

The Programme - including director’s notes, outline of performance process and a collection of source stories for the audience to take away and reflect upon.

The Forum - at the end of the performance, the theatrical space is transformed into a forum where the audience is encouraged to ask questions, express opinions and share their own stories with the performers and with each other.

The performance in this instance acts as a provocation for a public discussion that invites people to reflect on these immediate issues of immigration and identity in relation to their own experiences and history. The work aims to present an apolitical/cross-party event that offers a human perspective on immigration and refugees rather than a partisan political perspective that can often distance the public from human rights issues.


Source of the stories - In order to relate to these wider global questions we first look to our own experience as a team of theatre makers. The cast itself is made up of New Zealand performers with various cultural backgrounds including Maori, Dutch, English, Irish, Danish, Chinese, Greek, Scottish, American, Iraqi, Somalian and Sri Lank an. The very act of collaboration towards a theatre piece is in itself an example of New Zealand’s multiculturalism in action.

The creative team will work over a five weeks rehearsal period, weaving together personal histories and memories with stories gathered from other migrant groups. From the settler beginnings New Zealand has had a tradition of looking after people in need:

- Local iwi taking in and care of bedraggled arrivals from Mother England
- Internal Maori refugees due to tribal warfare
- Irish potato famine throughout mid 19th century and beyond (Irish diaspora)
- Early settler stories - those early British immigrants many of whom were escaping class impoverishment and oppression and who arrived in New Zealand with next to nothing coming to make a better life
- Chinese settlement
- World War II refugees – Jewish, Polish, Hungarian, Eastern European
- Refugees in the later 20th century from Ukraine, Vietnam, Cambodia, Kosovo, Tampa/Afghanistan, Somalia, India – Sikhs, Chile, Algeria- Ahmed Zaoui, the Pacific - Tuvalu/Fijian Indians

Contributors - Penny Fitt, Head of Performance Design, Massey/Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School; Gordon Campbell, Freelance journalist; Miranda Harcourt, Head of Acting, Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School

“We were strangers once”

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37.41
POETRY STUDIO

Have a Go! Open Mike! Every Sunday afternoon from 2 to 4 pm at Bluenote (ph 801-5007), cnr Cuba & Vivian Sts, Wellington All Welcome! Free Admisson! Contact Steve Booth 477-0156 or poetrystudio@paradise.net.nz

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37.42
DEVIL IN DISGUISE
Mozart’s Don Giovanni Wooing Wellington

The New Zealand Opera presents Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni: a brazen seducer dices with divine retribution (Sung in Italian with English surtitles).

The charming but unscrupulous Don Giovanni has seduced so many women, he needs a helper to keep a record of them all. One hundred in France, ninety-one in Turkey, and in Spain more than a thousaand - but in seeking yet another conquest, Donna Anna, he finally faces punishment. As his enemies plot to bring him down, a terrifying revenge is also being planned from beyond the grave.
Don Giovanni is a compelling combination of comic and dramatic traditions reflected in a score by Mozart that spans the musical spectrum. Taking the central role in The New Zealand Opera's 2005 production is Paul Whelan, flanked by an array of fine New Zealand singers, including Conal Coad, Richard Green, Rodney Macann, Marie-Adele McArthur and Patricia Wright.
Don't miss Don Giovanni, the most musically brilliant ghost story of the year. With the Opera Chorus accompanied by the Wellington Sinfonia

Performances:
Saturday 25, 29 June and 1 July, 7.30pm 3 July, 2.00pm (Matinee)

Ticket prices: $49.50 - $156.50. New mid-range ticket price of $69.50.
(Groups and concessions also apply - ask about NBR NZ Opera's new group incentives and student rush prices.) *Service fees may apply
For more information
www.nzopera.com
Book through
The NZ Opera 04 499 8343  or from Ticketek box offices, phone 04 384 3840

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37.43
HAPPY WILL ROCK YOUR BOAT

Attention inmates! move to the centre! raise your arms! now dig! End your imprisonment and get thee to Happy…
 

Fri 17  10pm
THOUGHT CREATURE
CPTAIN HAMMONDHEAD
 
Sat 18 10pm
THIS NIGHT CREEPS CD RELEASE
LADY LUCK
SO SO MODERN
 
Thurs 23
MIDWEST MOTORPARTS CORRALL
 
Fri 24
GOON
 
Sat 25
FETE DE LA MUSIQUE
(see below) 

Mon 27
WHIRLWIND HEAT (USA)
THE MINT CHICKS

Happy
corner Vivian and Tory Streets
PO Box 9069
Wellington
New Zealand
+64 4 384 1965
www.happy.net.nz

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37.44
JOUEZ, COMME VOUS VOULEZ
(la musique est libre at merveilleuse)

The Alliance Francaise and the French Embassy present the 9th annual

Fete de la Musique - Free Festival of Music
June 26th
9pm to 3am
at Happy, Latino's, Beau Monde and Chow Cabaret

The Alliance Francaise is proud to present the 9th annual Fete de la Musique festival of music.

After the huge success of the festival in 2004, where an estimated 1000 people enjoyed the best of Wellington music, this year's festival is again located at four inner city venues and features some of Wellington's most inspired and inspiring musical groups.

Fete de la Musique is a free event sponsored by the Alliance Francaise (the French cultural exchange centre in New Zealand) and the French Embassy. It has been designed to emulate the massive Fete de la Musique festivals that are held in Paris, Berlin and across the world. These events attract crowds in the hundreds of thousands. The Wellington event makes the varied and exciting Wellington music scene accessible to the public for one massive night of festival atmosphere.

"We are really excited about this year's Fete de la Musique," says Alliance Francaise Director Jean Francois Fievet. "After 2004's success in presenting such a huge and exciting festival, this year can only build on the last."

Happy, Latino's Tapas Bar, Beau Monde and the new venue, Chow Cabaret, are the event's hosts. These are all located on Tory Street within a minute's walk of each other. Ten groups will perform in these four venues from 9pm till close at 3am.

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37.45
GO GLOBAL

http://www.globalmuseum.org/

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37.46
LET THE FILM FESTIVALS BEGIN

Cannes winners direct to the Telecom New Zealand International Film Festivals

Four of the top award-winning films from this year’s Cannes Film Festival will have their first screenings outside of Europe at this year’s Telecom New Zealand International Film Festivals.

“The nationwide Festivals regularly target prize-winning films from Cannes (and other international festivals for that matter). This year’s screening of four Cannes winners equates with our previous best,” says Bill Gosden, Film Festival Director.

The ultimate prize at Cannes is the Palme d’Or, which was scooped last year by Michael Moore’s attention-grabbing Fahrenheit 9/11. This year’s winner, The Child, a feature film by Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, will also screen at the Telecom New Zealand International Film Festivals.

The Child, a riveting, at times alarmingly suspenseful moral tale of a feckless young hustler whose cavalier attitude to fatherhood takes him in to very deep waters indeed, has been described by Mr Gosden as “electrifyingly of-the- moment.”

Opening the Auckland and Wellington Festivals is Michael Haneke’s Hidden which won him Cannes’ Best Director award. Haneke’s film, which stars French actors Daniel Auteuil and Juliette Binoche, is described as “a tough, provocative and utterly gripping, psychological thriller, that is poised to be the year’s most hotly debated film.” Michael Haneke’s unnerving pictures of contemporary malaise (notably the controversial The Piano Teacher) have featured in earlier Festivals.

The feature debut by American video performance artist Miranda July shared the Camera d’Or, Cannes’ prize for Best Film by a new director. Me, You and Everyone We Know is a funny, poignant and quirky tale which burrows into suburbia to illustrate a classic conundrum: kids who want to be grown-ups, and grown-ups who long for the irresponsibility of youth.

Wang Xiaoshuai’s Cannes’ Jury Prize winner brings a prime example of the new frankness of Chinese cinema to the Festival screen. Shanghai Dreams is a family drama dealing with the lasting fall-out from the policies of the 60s, which relocated Chinese families from the cities to the countryside.

This is the second year Telecom has sponsored the Festivals, helping the programmers to make the world of film accessible to even more New Zealanders through increased marketing resources and the development of a study guide for secondary school students. More than 200,000 tickets were sold to last year’s Festivals.

Quality AND quantity make up this year’s programme which draws from a pool of over 150 features, documentaries, animated and short films, hand picked by the Festivals’ programmers over the last year from all over the world.

The entire programme will be announced in Auckland on 14 June and Wellington 16 June.

Festival dates:
Auckland July 8-24, Wellington July 15 - 31, Dunedin July 22 - August 7, Christchurch July 29 - August 14, Palmerston North August 4 – 21, Hamilton August 11 - 28, Napier August 17 - September 4, Tauranga August 25 - September 7, New Plymouth September 1 -14, Nelson September 8 – 21, Masterton October 12 – 26, Queenstown October 27 - November 9TBC, Levin November 3 – 16, Gisborne November 10 – 23, Whangarei November 17 - 30.
And this year for the first time the Film Festival will visit Greymouth September 30 – October 2

www.nzff.telecom.co.nz

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37.47
MIXED MARRIAGE

It has been said that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but at the heart of David Mamet’s play Boston Marriage lies the acquisition and ownership of a large and expensive emerald necklace.

Anna and Claire are two bantering, scheming ladies of fashion who have long lived on the fringes of upper-class society. Anna has recently had the good fortune of becoming the mistress of a wealthy man. With him come an extraordinary emerald necklace and a generous allowance, guaranteeing her future comfort. Claire wishes to enlist Anna’s help for an assignation with a new flame. However their plotting to arrange Claire’s tryst embroils them neck deep in trouble when the young object of her affections sparks off a crisis of hilarious proportions.

“Mamet’s characters are at each others throats with a wit akin to characters out of Wilde and a vengeance not unlike those from Pinter.” The Boston Globe

David Mamet, one of America’s most revered and provocative dramatists, continues exploring new territory with this wickedly funny comedy of errors set in a Victorian drawing room. Better known for gangster films such as The Untouchables and The Spanish Prisoner, and stage plays Oleanna and Glengarry Glen Ross. Mamet first dabbled in this drawing room mode with the screenplay of Terrence Rattigan’s play The Winslow Boy, which found much acclaim worldwide.

Director Jude Gibson is delighting in Mamet’s crosspollination of his signature “dazzling dialogue” with the more restrained Victorian comedy of manners. She says, “The wit and charm of the language, partnered with such delightful characters, is delicious. Typically at the core of Mamet’s work is an unanswerable question. In this instance the question is ‘What is Love’?”

She is working with actresses Heather Bolton, Tandi Wright and Dena Kennedy, and designers Tolis Papazoglou (Maui), John Senczuk (Wednesday to Come) and Paul O’Brien (Romeo & Juliet), to evoke the style, elegance, glamour and intrigue inherent in this wickedly entertaining play.

Actor-director Jude Gibson began her theatre life in Auckland where she first worked for Theatre Corporate, Mercury Theatre, Tantrum Theatre and the Auckland Theatre Company. Jude ventured to Wellington to work for the first time in 1989 where she appeared in a Downstage production of Private Lives. Moving to Wellington in 1999, Jude has worked consistently at Circa Theatre, where she has performed in numerous productions, most recently Milo’s Wake. Jude has also performed at Downstage, more frequently in the last 4 years, on productions that have included The Vagina Monologues, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet and Up For Grabs. She directed Fiona Samuel’s The Wedding Party in 2001. Jude took up the prestigious Shakespeare Globe International Artistic Fellowship in 2002, spending a month’s intensive study at the Globe Theatre in London.

Australia-based Heather Bolton flies over the ditch especially to play Anna. Originally from NZ, Heather has developed a high profile overseas, working most notably with the Melbourne Theatre & Bell Shakespeare companies during her 10+ years in Oz. Probably best known as the lead in Gaylene Preston's feature film Mr Wrong, she was last at Downstage in Good Works in 1995.

Heather is joined by Tandi Wright as Claire, & Dena Kennedy as Catherine the Scottish maid. Tandi, a well-known face on NZ television, has had core-cast roles on Shortland St, Willy Nilly & Street Legal. She was last onstage in Wellington in Rutherford at Circa in 2000. Dena's most recent stagework is Dave Armstrong's new touring play King & Country which premiered in Wanaka last month. Dena has been seen on TV series’ Insiders Guide to Happiness & Facelift. She’s was onstage in Cloud 9 at Circa and in Bare at Centrepoint Theatre in Palmerston North last year. Both Tandi & Dena have appeared recently on Seven Periods with Mr Gormsby for TV1.

Boston Marriage by David Mamet
3 – 23 July
Mon & Tue 6.30pm, Wed – Sat 8.00pm
Matinee: Saturday 23 July 4.00pm, Preshow Talk: Monday 4 July 5.45pm
Special Gala Opening: Sunday 3 July 6.00pm
(No Show Tuesday 5 July)
www.downstage.co.nz

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37.48
LIONISED

The Lion in Winter
Written by James Goldman and directed by Iona Anderson

“What shall we hang, the holly or each other?”

Long before the term "dysfunctional" was commonly applied to families, James Goldman gave the world a glimpse of this age-old phenomenon by creating for the stage the members of England's original Plantagenet family: King Henry II, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and their sons. Although best known for this play, The Lion in Winter, and the screenplay for the resultant movie, Goldman was a prolific writer who based many of his novels, plays, and screenplays on history, a subject he dearly loved.

The Lion in Winter starts when Henry II of England releases Eleanor of Aquitaine, his wife of some 30 years, from house arrest to join him and their three remaining sons at Chinon castle for Christmas - not for a loving family reunion but to choose his heir. Eleanor prefers Richard (who becomes Richard the Lionheart); Henry prefers John, the youngest; while no-one apparently cares one jot for Geoffrey, the middle son and most cunning of them all.

Confusing matters is the presence of Alais, Henry's adored mistress, and her brother Philip, King of France, who is demanding her marriage to Richard or the return of the valuable land which is her dowry. The play takes place over two days as all six, with Alais as the pawn, engage in a chess battle of wit and machination to establish supremacy.

The Lion in Winter is the winner of many major theatre awards and, as one reviewer comments, “it’s written with a delicious, mordant wit', full of humour that bristles and burns”.

29 June - 9 July (curtain at 8pm; 3rd July at 4pm and 5th & 6th July at 6.30pm)

Tickets: $18/15
Bookings: Ph. (04) 3850 532
www.stagecraft.co.nz

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37.49
BATS, YOUTH, HUNGER

Young and Hungry Festival of New Works
Bats Theatre
1 Kent Terrace
June 17th ­ July 2nd 2005
Bookings Ph 802 4175 book@bats.co.nz
Ticket prices $12 /$15 or season pass for all 3 plays $24/36

Since 1994 the Young and Hungry Festival of New Works has been getting together the hottest young theatre talent to bring Wellington an annual festival of new plays. Young actors, designers and technicians get to stretch their creative legs under the guidance of professional directors, writers and mentors.

This year’s Young and Hungry Festival of New Works at Bats Theatre premieres new plays by Stephen Bain, Whiti Hereaka and Lauren Jackson.

“With 54 participants, 5 mentors, 3 directors, 3 writers and 1 animator the
2005 Festival is shaping up to be the greatest Young and Hungry ever. The line up for this year includes a completely animated character, German speaking teenagers and a mafia style shoot out.” says Young and Hungry Producer Angela Meyer.

The Many Faces of Kelly J Loko
By Stephan Bain
Directed By Paul McLaughlin
6.30pm
Laptops, i-pods, chat rooms and text messaging - welcome to the world of Kelly J Loko. Watch as young Kelly discovers that people aren¹t always what they seem to be in the age of the Œinvisible friend¹ and ŒBig Brother¹. Can Kelly learn to establish herself in the physical world as well as she can in the virtual? Or will she get lost in cyber space forever?
Director Paul McLaughlin takes on the challenge of this innovative new play written by Stephen Bain. A self-confessed technophobe, Paul is keen to get up with the play in Kelly J.


Exchange
By Lauren Jackson
Directed By Kerryn Palmer
8.00pm
Break out your lederhousen and moisten your strudel ­ cos here comes the class of 1994. Five Kiwi kids are about to experience the trip of a lifetime when they take on Germany. How will they cope with the culture shock and the numerous stereotypes? Is there more to New Zealand than pavlova, All Blacks and buzzy bees? An OE is as Kiwi as BBQs and gumboots, both writer Lauren Jackson and Director Kerryn Palmer have experienced this rite of passage.

Collective Agreement
By Whiti Hereaka
Directed By Larry Rew
9.30pm
How do you survive bad pay, snotty superiors and the monotony of retail hell? ­ rob the customers, of course!
Step 1: Nod and Smile (the customer is always right!).
Step 2: Maintain the illusion of the perfect employee, always on time, always tidy and always polite.
Step 3: Rip off the buggers and frame someone else.
Larry Rew a member of the Director¹s Guild of Great Britain and former retail assistant Whiti Hereaka have joined in a Collective Agreement to expose what¹s really going on at our department stores.


BATS Theatre
1 Kent Terrace
Wellington, Aotearoa
bats@bats.co.nz
bookings 802 4175
office 802 4176
fax 802 4010
www.bats.co.nz

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37.50
TRUNCATED

Main Trunk Lines - an exhibition celebrating New Zealand poetry
22 July to 30 October 2005 at the National Library Gallery

A major exhibition of New Zealand poetry from the past 150 years opens at the National Library Gallery on 22 July.

Drawing extensively on the book and manuscript collections of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Main Trunk Lines: New Zealand poetry samples some of the country's best-known poems alongside the more peripheral, experimental and surprising

Exhibits range from Eileen Duggan's teapot to a cartoon about James K Baxter by Chris Knox. Also included are book-designs, voice recordings, Anna Livesey's series of commissioned poems on a set of beer coasters, and two poems written by James K Baxter on the wallpaper of Michael Illingworth's house.

From the widely accepted to the radical - Thomas Bracken's 'God Defend New Zealand' to Cilla McQueen's 'Dogwobble' - Main Trunk Lines offers visitors a bearing on the broad imaginative map of New Zealand poetry.

Collaborations between visual artists and poets have long been a feature of New Zealand cultural life. Photographs by Alan Knowles, Robert Cross and others will provide a composite group-portrait of the poets behind the lines. Works by Waiheke-based Denis O'Connor incorporate poems by Allen Curnow, Janet Frame and others. Further artists in the exhibition include Ralph Hotere, Colin McCahon, John Reynolds, Saskia Leek, John Pule, Fiona Pardington, Virginia King, John Baxter, Toss Woollaston and Michael Illingworth. The short poem-films of Richard von Sturmer are also included.

The 'main trunk lines' in the title are the lines of poetry that run through the books and art works in the exhibition - the lines that have shaped and influenced the imaginative life of New Zealand. Featuring the most significant poems and publications of the past 150 years, the exhibition looks at poetry today, how it got here and where it's going in the future.

A well-stocked reading room will be a feature of the exhibition, allowing visitors to sit back and savour a huge range of current poetry titles. A diverse programme of related events will also be offered during the course of the exhibition.

Main Trunk Lines is curated by Jenny Bornholdt (current Te Mata Estate Poet Laureate) and Gregory O'Brien.

For further information and high-resolution images, please contact:
Susan Bartel, Public Relations Manager, National Library Gallery
Phone: 04 474 3119 or 027 223 5159
Email: susan.bartel@natlib.govt.nz
www.natlib.govt.nz

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37.51
LITTLE BIG VOICE

Young Voices Fill the New Wellington Arts Centre: Local music educator Sharon Thorburn invites Wellington’s young creative people to participate in a major new musical initiative

The sound of young voices expressing themselves in harmony is now ringing through the halls of Wellington’s new arts centre. Student singers from years 3 to 8 are invited to become part of “Little Big Voice,” a growing choral effort to nurture the music skills of local young people. Weekly choir rehearsals are now underway, and the growing ensemble welcomes new voices from all parts of the Capital City. The innovative programme, developed by Thorburn, provides an inclusive approach to music performance and a repertoire of New Zealand and international songs.

A second initiative, “Lights, Camera, Action!” is being developed by Thorburn to foster composition, scripting, rehearsal, and stage talents in local young people. Her multi-disciplinary workshops are designed to build performance confidence, identity and creativity through music, drama and dance. Both opportunities are based at the new Wellington Arts Centre in Abel Smith Street.

Sharon Thorburn is an award winning composer and music educator with international primary and secondary school experience. Her Wellington-based choirs and a cappella groups have won national competitions at secondary school level and represented New Zealand internationally at primary and intermediate level. She has a passion for promoting the original voice of our young people, who discover their identity and creative potential through music.

Thorburn is one of many creative people hiring the spaces at the new facility at 61-63 Abel Smith Street. The Wellington Arts Centre offers meeting rooms, art workshops, an exhibition gallery, and project administration room for use by people and organisations involved in local creative developments. The new centre opened its doors in April, and a grand opening is set for late July.

To learn more about “Little Big Voice” or “Lights, Camera, Action!” contact organiser Sharon Thorburn at Sharonthorburn@paradise.net.nz or by phoning 04 9340585.

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37.52
CITY SLICKERS

SMALL WORLD, BIG TOWN: CONTEMPORARY ART FROM TE PAPA
City Gallery Wellington
Presented by Simpson Grierson
10 July – 30 October 2005
FREE ENTRY

City Gallery Wellington is proud to announce ‘Small World, Big Town: Contemporary Art from Te Papa’, an exhibition in partnership with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

This partnership will give audiences an opportunity to see an exciting and diverse range of contemporary New Zealand art. ‘Small World, Big Town’ has been jointly curated City Gallery Wellington and Te Papa, and includes work by 28 New Zealand artists, drawn from the Te Papa visual art collections.

‘Small World, Big Town’ takes as its theme a shift in artists’ thinking in recent decades, from concerns about national identity and nationhood to the ideas and impacts of globalisation, a would-be regionalism and the importance of individual experience.

The works selected for ‘Small World, Big Town’ focus both on the local and the immediate, as well as our growing sense of belonging to a global community. Now, as the world appears to shrink in scale, artists get their bearings from all over the globe. ‘Small World, Big Town’ offers audiences an affectionate look at ourselves as a big town on the periphery of an increasingly smaller world; remote, yet globally connected.

The works included in the exhibition range from iconic pieces by well-known artists, such as Peter Robinson’s ‘My marae, my Methven’, the centre piece of the 1995 international touring exhibition ‘Cultural Safety’, to recent acquisitions by emerging artists such as Peter Stichbury and Mladen Bizumic.

‘Small World, Big Town’ will present an exciting array of artworks, from Ani O’Neill’s six-metre long weaving made of florist’s ribbon and thread, to moving image work by Yuk King Tan, paintings by Michael Harrison and Bill Hammond, photographs by Fiona Pardington and Yvonne Todd, sculpture by Michael Parekowhai and Richard Reddaway and page works by cartoonist Dylan Horrocks.

A significant element of ‘Small World, Big Town’ will be the first New Zealand showing of Michael Stevenson’s ‘This is the Trekka’, made possible by its recent acquisition for Te Papa’s collections. ‘This is the Trekka’ was New Zealand’s presentation at the 50th Venice Biennale of International Art 2003.

City Gallery Wellington director Paula Savage says: “We are thrilled to have worked with Te Papa on this exhibition. I know the curators at City Gallery Wellington have really enjoyed working with a collection of such high calibre, and we are very much looking forward to presenting the results of our combined work to the public. We are sure that visitors will find ‘Small World, Big Town’ a fresh and engaging look at the fantastic work produced by New Zealand artists over the past 20 years.”

Seddon Bennington, Chief Executive, Te Papa, says: "Te Papa is extremely pleased to be working with City Gallery Wellington to develop an exhibition of works from our collections for the people of Wellington and visitors to the region. ‘Small World, Big Town’ complements the many works on display at Te Papa, and builds on our long term strategy to increase access to the treasures in our collections through our loans programme with New Zealand's public galleries and museums."

The artists featured in ‘Small World, Big Town’ are:

Mladen Bizumic; Derrick Cherrie; Margaret Dawson; Bill Hammond; Michael Harrison; Gavin Hipkins; Saskia Leek; Lauren Lysaght; Andrew McLeod; Anne Noble; Ani O’Neill; Fiona Pardington; Michael Parekowhai; John Pule; Richard Reddaway; Peter Robinson; Ava Seymour; Marie Shannon; Michael Shepherd; Michael Stevenson; Peter Stichbury; Yuk King Tan; Yvonne Todd; Ronnie van Hout; John Walsh; Ruth Watson; Boyd Webb; Brendan Wilkinson.



37.53
TELLING STORIES

Wellington Storytellers’ Cafe at the New Arts Centre

The Storytellers’ Café is the home of storytelling in the Capital. From 7:30 – 9 pm on the first Tuesday of every month except January, the café is open to everyone.  Come along to the next session at the new arts centre, 61-63 Abel Smith Street. All you need to do is bring your ears!  Each month a different teller takes the stage, and there is always room for offerings from the audience.  Cost is $5, tea, coffee and nibbles are provided.

Contact: 021-687-627

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37.54
NEW GIG FOR CREATIVE KIWI

From 15 June edition of the (Canada) Globe and Mail
By James Adams

One of Canada's most important visual-arts centres gets a new director later this summer, and he's coming all the way from New Zealand.

Sources close to The Power Plant, Toronto's premier non-collecting showcase for cutting-edge contemporary art, confirmed yesterday that a search committee has picked Gregory Burke to succeed Wayne Baerwaldt as the gallery's director. Baerwaldt, who came to The Power Plant in March, 2002, after running Winnipeg's Plug In Gallery for 13 years, announced his resignation in February and completed his term in Toronto June 2.

Burke is currently in Venice overseeing New Zealand's participation in the city's famous Biennale. He also was curator of New Zealand's first-ever presentation at the Biennale, in 2001. For the last seven years he's been director of the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery in New Plymouth on New Zealand's Northern Island. Previously, he served as an administrator with Creative New Zealand, that country's equivalent of the Canada Council, and assistant curator of the Wellington City Art Gallery. A native of New Zealand, he's been generally regarded as the country's main connection to the international art market.

In 1992 he became the first New Zealander to be given membership in the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art.

In a prepared statement released yesterday, Burke said: "It is very rare indeed that a New Zealander is appointed to a major international art directorship, let alone one from a regional gallery. While I am honoured by this recognition, the appointment is also a reflection of the international regard for the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery. . . . As much as I am very happy at the Govett-Brewster, the new position will open up new challenges and experiences for me, which is exciting to say the least."

Burke's last day at the New Zealand gallery will be Aug. 12. The Power Plant, a division of Harbourfront Centre, was opened in 1987 in a converted generating centre alongside Lake Ontario. Since then its 8,000 square metres have hosted exhibitions by such notable Canadian artists as General Idea, Arnaud Maggs, Yves Gaucher, Kim Adams, Ken Lum and Janet Cardiff, as well as international luminaries Christian Boltanski, Wim Delvoye, Daniel Richter, Roni Horn, Vik Muniz and Tracey Emin. Its annual exhibition budget is about $3-million.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20050615.wxpower15/BNStory/Entertainment/

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37.55
STRATEGIC THINKING

What is your arts strategy?
http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/policies/artsstrat/index.html

OK then, what about a cultural strategy?
http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/policies/culturestrat/index.html

What about community access to venues?
http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/policies/commvenues/index.html

Well how about an Events policy?
http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/policies/events/index.html

Or maybe an art collection policy?
http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/policies/furnishingsart/index.html

And is there a Museums Policy?
http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/policies/museums/index.html

Did somebody say Public Art Policy?
http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/policies/publicart/index.html

No, wait, did you mean urban design?
http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/policies/urbandesign/index.html

What, you want more?
http://www.wellington.govt.nz/plans/index.html

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37.56
THE NO.8 WIRE: PAST AND PRESENT

Archives of the No. 8 Wire are on-line at
www.arts.blogspot.com

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37.57
CONTACT THE NO.8 WIRE

To be removed from this email list…

To be added…

To submit contents, events, opportunities, or comments to contribute to…

Please send word to arts@wcc.govt.nz

Furthermore, send comments, questions, requests, etc to

Eric Vaughn Holowacz
Wellington Arts Centre
61-69 Abel Smith Street
Wellington, New Zealand
Arts@wcc.govt.nz
04-385-1929

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The Octo-numerical Query.
A batch of questions is presented.
A creative person answers.
http://www.octonumerical.blogspot.com/


MARK WILLIAMS

What cities/towns have you lived in (or spent more than a few months in), beginning with your place of birth.

Born and raised Dunedin, lived also in Oxford, UK and Wellington, NZ.

What are the earliest stories you remember hearing?

Something about an Irishman named ‘Paddy’

What music was present and still memorable from your youth/adolescence?

Last night I heard ‘Jessies Girl’ at full volume coming from a party which reminded me of hearing 4ZB every morning as a child

For you as a creative person, who are three influential artists or thinkers?

Andy Warhol ... too many others

What is your dream of happiness?

Peace, Time

Who are your favourite or most admired figures from history?

Tesla maybe...

Name three films that you consider profound, moving, or extraordinary.

Wages of Fear, La Jetee, Pixote

What was your first real job? second? third?

1) Making an arts guide for the Dunedin City Council! 2) Being a telephone Yellow Pages for ‘Freepages’ 3) Volunteer Co-Ordinator at Trade Aid

If you had to eat the same meal every day, what would it be?

Fresh fruit

Name a few books that you couldn't put down, would read again, haunt you still.

The Master and Margarita - Bulgakov
Haunting Stories for Boys - misc
Under the Banner of Heaven - Krakauer

What have you done, seen, experienced, or produced that was a disappointment to you?

Last night’s nacho sauce, a production of ‘Oleanna’ I was in years ago, a couple of things where equipment failed thus destroying the audience experience... anything hyped.

What was the most recent live performance you attended, and where was it presented?

Ghost Club, Indigo Bar, Wellington, April 7th, 2005.

In one sentence, can you define art?

Relative

What word of advice would you offer an aspiring artist in your field?

As Warhol said ‘think about what you want to do and do it’ (and don’t rely on funding - me)

Where would you like to live, but have yet to?

San Francisco, Bangkok

What would you like to do, but have yet to?

finish that play....finish my cartoon idea...make another film...make another record...edit all those tapes...live in a tropical climate and stop thinking about all this stuff!

Briefly describe a project you are planning for the future.

A CD by my improvising band called The Idle Suite.

What one question would you add to this Query?

How’s Your News?


BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH:

Born: Dunedin, ‘73. Art History degree (NZ, ‘93) unfinished, Drama School (UK, ‘95-96) drop-out. Dole, student loan and part-time work (92-99) finance various self-propelled musical and artistic projects; an online arts-politics-sports-writing magazine ‘the Goodfoot’; musician in MarineVille, The Idle Suite, The Bridge of Sighs, Jacques reBrellion, involved in various film projects with Messrs MD Brown and C.Walker. Now a Project Developer at the NZ Film Archive, Wellington, which menas I create shows and screenings.

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ENDNOTE

All his life William Faulkner had avoided speeches, and insisted that he not be taken as a man of letters. 'I'm just a farmer who likes to tell stories.' he once said. Because of his known aversion to making formal pronouncements, there was much interest, when he traveled to Stockholm to receive the prize on December 10, 1950, in what he would say in the speech that custom obliged him to deliver. Faulkner evidently wanted to set right the misinterpretation of his own work as pessimistic. But beyond that, he recognized that, as the first American novelist to receive the prize since the end of World War II, he had a special obligation to take the changed situation of the writer, and of man, into account.


William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize Speech
Stockholm, Sweden
December 10, 1950

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work--a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.
      Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.
      Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.