Jennifer Ward-Lealand (Helene) and Anna Julienne (Sophia)
Two Ladies by Nancy Harris
Auckland Theatre Company
Auckland Waterfront Theatre
Until February 27
With much speculation about the future of Melania Trump, Nancy Harris’ play “Two Ladies” is pertinent. Just what do the. first ladies think about their roles, are they the power behind the throne or merely appendages to the president to indicate power.
The play imagines a private encounter between the two first ladies of France and the United States. The setting is a summit meeting between the two presidents with The United States having suffered a terrorist attack which has killed thousands. America is about to launch a retaliatory attack and it is up to the French president to restrain him. The men never appear, but their presence looms large off stage and the implications of their decisions is debated by the wives.
The women also keep revealing aspects of their personal lives which brings them to a greater understanding of each other. Their discussion on personal integrity and honesty provides a contrast to what is happening in the high level discussions of the men.
The French president’s wife Helene is English but there are similarities to Bridget Macron. An older woman who left her husband to marry one of her students and who guides him through the political world to eventually become president. But her status as First Lady is now compromised by the fact that the president has had an affair with a Minister in his government. Jennifer Ward Lealand manages to display some of the determination that would come with the role as well as the moral indignation she feels over husbands’ indiscretions and decisions. Her cool sangfroid keeps being shattered by moments of panic.
Sophie (Anna Julienne) is the presidents trophy wife and like Melania she is a glamourous model from Eastern Europe. Initially appearing to have many of the same vacuous qualities as Melania she slowly reveals a disturbing history, unsettling opinions and a dangerous handbag.
The play is hugely entertaining with some sharp observations, witty sparring and painful revelations but there are also some dull patches, purposeless pregnant pauses and an unsatisfying surreal ending.
The three minor players add further touches of comedy. Rena Owen plays a ferocious Press Secretary to Sophia, Adam Gardiner the quintessential haughty French Press Secretary and Ban Abdul is an animated maid.
John Blackburn ‘Extended Stay’ is a body of work that the British artist completed while confined to New Zealand last year because of the Covid 19 Pandemic, The artist who regularly comes to New Zealand to paint and exhibit spent three months, mainly in lockdown producing these works which reflect on his time in isolation.
From the exhibition title, “Extended Stay” and the titles of many of the works the exhibition can be seen as the artists personal diary of the plague year. Several of the works have specific dates in their titles – “The Mount April 2020, Level 1 @ 11.50pm, and June 16/17”. Some of the paintings have additional descriptions on the rear of the paintings such as “Rotorua NZ & @ The Mount 4th 6: 20. Covid Lockdown 4::3:2”: and “The Balcony Pacific Apt 508, The Mount. N.Z. Covid Level 1”.
Most of these works used the limited structures, shapes and colours of his recent paintings . This lexicon of forms: vessels, geometric shapes, abstract shapes- are used to create a personal language which provides sense of dialogue with links between the individual components of the paintings. His vessel shapes are like celestial pots of paint containing the colours of the environment – the blues of sea and sky, the green and browns of the land, an array of pointillist dots hinting at energy. Or it could be as though he has extracted the colours from environment and condensed them down.
There is a delicacy and simplicity to the work, obvious in his attempts to refine his experience of the world into its essential components.
The works have an emphasis on structures colours and textures with observation on places and times. The forms and colours allude to the landscapes, the changing patterns of sky and water while the blocks of abstract colour represent various atmospheric conditions red and yellow suns, the blinding white of summer and the blacks of storm clouds.
So in “Horizon with Pink” ($4750) we see a curved line of The Mount, tinged with a pink of sunset along with a vessel of blue and block of intense whit as e. The simple “A Bright Day” ($3500) consist of red and yellow circles (Sun and Moon) above a curved hill shape. Other works are almost mundane with “Key Card” ($3650) dominated by the yellow shape of a room key card.
Some works appear to be experiments in colour notations, looking like representation of cellular forms as in “Ovoid Forms (Remembering Roy Parker) No 3” ($4000).
The works bring together the spontaneity of oriental abstract calligraphy, the keen observation of John Constable’s cloud studies and the drama of gestural and geometric abstraction. The paintings seem to be bringing order to the chaos and the disorder of the visible world.
This year’s Auckland Arts Festival will be a substantially different festival from previous years. With no international acts able to travel the emphasis will be on local artists and events.
One of the few international acts will be “The Artist” presented by international circus sensation Thomas Monckton who managed to slip back into New Zealand last year. In this performance an artist arrives at his paint-spattered studio ready to create a new work. He waits for inspiration. When it finally comes, things don’t proceed quite as he would wish. For this artist, every task is filled with challenges – chaos is unavoidable.
The Festival has commissioned world premieres of several new works, resuscitated some that were cancelled in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. There will be a number of free activities including events on International Women’s Day, New Zealand Children’s Day, the Festival opening ceremony Te Tīmatanga and the closing sing-a-long Kia ora Tamaki featuring Betty-Anne Monga and members of Ardijah.
Wāhine Toikupu will present the poetry of American Maya Angelou who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama. Her work which has been translated into te reo will be delivered by graduates of Te Panekiretanga o Te Reo Institute o Maori language Excellence. Taku Tau Kahurangi: An Aotearoa Love Story performed by the Ria Hall features a collection of classic New Zealand love songs,
The Civic Club is a brand new concept for the Festival that will see audiences seated onstage at The Civic with a line-up of top music acts, including Reb Fountain, Dixon Nacey, Delaney Davidson with Shayne Carter – and Hine!, a showcase of four breakthrough wāhine toa performers.
The Tom Sainsbury Love Hour will be a comedy talk show with celebrity guests including Hilary Barry and Chlöe Swarbrick discussing their best break-ups, make-ups and obsessions. The Club will also host Heavenly Bodies, a cabaret event with New Zealand’s finest circus superstars, urban acrobats and outrageous curiosities.
Other Festival highlights include the 20th anniversary celebration of Che-Fu’s seminal album Navigator, which the artist will perform with his band The Kratez, headlining the Festival’s Polynesian Panthers 50th Anniversary programming. The Panthers were an activist group known for their protests against the notorious dawn raids of the 1970s, and 2021 marks 50 years since their formation. AAF will feature exhibitions, talks, play readings and the creation of a mural honouring the Panthers’ legacy, as well as a performance in the Festival Garden by Che-Fu’s father, Panthers activist and reggae musician Tigilau Ness, with special guests.
Among the major theatre, music and dance performances will be Strasbourg 1518 which premiered at last year’s Wellington Arts festival to great acclaim. is a powerful tribute to the dancing plague of 1518, directed and choreographed by Lucy Marinkovich, composed by Lucien Johnson and featuring Michael Parmenter.
Vela Manusaute’s The Factory, the first Pacific Island musical was one of the highlights of the 2014 festival. This year his Tropical Love Birds brings audiences the tortured love tussle between electrifying beast of a league star Sani and his island queen Sheena to life. Jack and the Beanstalk will a hilarious romp through this classic tale with a kiwi twist, written, directed and starring the actor Michael Hurst.
Six of the finest pianists from Aotearoa, including Michael Houston, will be performing John Psathas’ immersive world premiere of Voices at the End. The work was inspired by the film Planetary and expands on various themes around ecological and organic systems and the need to move form an industrial growth society to a life sustaining society.
The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra celebrates International Women’s Day with a selection of women composers in Shoulder to Shoulder. Three New Zealand composers, Ruby Solly, Dorothy Ker and Rachael Morgan will feature alongside several other international composers including Germaine Tailleferre the only female member of Les Six, the early nineteenth century group of avant garde musicians.
The Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra will also be bringing audiences a big screen experience performing the Australasian premiere of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial in Concert, complete with John Williams’ Academy Award®-winning score.
The dance programme for this year’s festival consists of classical, kapa haka and contemporary dance. While not part of the festival The Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Tutus on Tour will be on in Manukau for one night and BalletCollective Aotearoa will premiere a trio of new work titled Subtle Dances, with the NZTrio playing live. Pūmanawa will feature four leading kapa haka groups while K-pop Party will feature performance curated by Rina Chae who has worked with Beyonce and Justin Bieber. There will also be two outdoor dance performances one The Air Between Us by Rodney Bell and Chloe Loftus and another a Figure Exhales by Zahra Killeen-Chance.
This year is the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Igor Stravinsky and it will also be sixty years since the composer himself conducted the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in Wellington and Auckland
It is fitting then that the NZSO opens its 2021 season with a nine centre touring concert featuring the composers “The Soldier’s Tale” in association with the Royal New Zealand Ballet.
The work, based on a Russian folk tale was written “to be read, played and danced”, tells the story of a man who makes a Faustian pact with the Devil: co-created with Swiss writer C.F. Ramuz, the work include a range of musical influences – tango, waltz, ragtime, klezmer, church chorales, and the paso doble.
Over the rest of the year the orchestra will play music from three other dance works by the composer – Petrushka (March), The Firebird (April) and The Rite of Spring (July).
In March the orchestra has a four centre South Island tour presenting “Town and Country”, a concert which will provide contrasts between the rural and the urban. The six pieces present this duality with music by English, American and New Zealand composers. The two English works both depict the countryside with Frederick Delius’ Walk to the Paradise Garden, from his opera A Village Romeo and Juliet and Malcolm Arnold’s “English Dances” which is a collection the best of English country folk dances.
The two American pieces draw inspiration from both the small town life and the city with Aaron Copland’s film score for Our Town is a nostalgic view of small town life in Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire. While Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes come from the musical On The Town, depicting 1940s New York with its jazz melodies, bebop rhythms and irresistible swing.
The two New Zealand pieces also contrast the rural and the urban with. Douglas Lilburn’s Drysdale Overture evoking the pastoral landscape of his family’s farm in the Turakina Valley and Maria Grenfell jubilant Fanfare for a City.
This year the orchestra is only performing a couple of major symphonic works including the National Youth orchestra playing Shostakovich’s Symphony No 7 (The Leningrad).
In September, but only in Wellington they will be playing Beethoven’s Symphony No 9. For this concert the NZSO will invite young performers from across the country to join in singing the chorus, with a new translation in te reo Māori. Then, in November the orchestra will perform the composers magnificent “Missa Solemnis” with some of the country’s best singers – Madeleine Pierard, Kristin Darragh Simon O’Neill and Paul Whelan
In July, but only in Auckland for Matariki the orchestra will premiere a new commission by Gareth Farr. His large scale “Ngā Hihi O Matariki celebrates the appearance of the Matariki constellation (the Pleiades or Seven Sisters) which traditionally signalled to Māori that it was time to plant crops. Matariki heralds both the constellation and the beginning of a new year symbolising new beginnings and humanity’s hopes for the future.
During April, the orchestra will be presenting a regional tour to Palmerston North, Napier and Tauranga performing Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” which will feature NZSO violinists Anna van der Zee, Malavika Gopal, Simeon Broom and Alan Molina playing a ‘season’ each of the work.
Also on the programme will be Astor Piazzolla’s Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas (also known as The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires) which transports the listener to the steamy streets of Argentina, cleverly combining Vivaldi’s most recognisable tunes with the sensual tango sounds which characterised Piazzolla’s style.
In 2021 the Auckland Philharmonia is offering a wide range of music from the great classics to recent musicals and the music of popular culture.
Having missed out on celebrating Beethoven’s 250th anniversary last year the APO will be presenting all the composers symphonies as well as performing his only opera, Fidelio. The seven symphonies will be spread out through the year with the first three symphonies performed in April and his Eighth and Ninth in November. Fidelio (May 8) will feature some of New Zealand’s great operatic talent with Simon O’Neill and Kirstin Sharpin who will be singing the role of Leonore which she sang last year for Melbourne Opera.
Among the other great symphonic works being presented will be Dvorak’s Symphony No 8 (From the New World), Brahms Symphony No 3, Schubert’s Symphony No 9 and Mahler’s Symphony No 5.
There is an excellent selection of violin concertos including the Bruch Violin concerto with soloist Benjamin Baker, the Brahms Violin Concerto (Benjamin Morrison) and Shostakovich Violin concerto No 2 (Natalia Lomeiko)
The orchestra will be playing a number of popular works such as Sibelius’ “Finlandia”, Ravel’s “Pavane for a Dead Princess”, Copland’s “Appalachian Spring Suite” and Bach’s “The Musical Offering”.
Orchestras around the world have been working on broadening their appeal to wider audiences and the APO has more than doubled its popular concerts for this year. Following the sell-out success of “Planet Earth II Live in Concert in 2019, they will present “Blue Planet II Live in Concert” based on the BAFTA Award-winning BBC television series. Another family concert will see the orchestra playing the music composed by Academy Award-nominated John Powell along with a screening of the film “How to Train Your Dragon in Concert”
“Aretha” will celebrate the music of Aretha Franklin with singers Boh Runga, Bella Kalolo and Vanessa Stacey while “Super Heroes will feature music of the superhero characters from Batman, Spiderman, The Avengers, Thor and Wonder Woman.
Another superheroes concert “Shoulder to Shoulder” celebrates International Women’s Day with a concert presenting the compositions of eight women including work by New Zealanders Ruby Solly, Rachael Morgan and Dorothy Ker. The other composers will be, Germaine Tailleferre, Reena Esmail,Hildegard of Bingen, Aida Shirazi andJulia Wolfe
The Deloitte Winter Gala will feature a full dining experience along with music from “The Wizard of Oz” and “Wicked”.
Barbora Kysilkova working on a painting of Karl-Bertil Nordland
The Painter and the Thief
Directed by Benjamin Ree
Release date, December 26
Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples
“The Painter and the Thief “is an intriguing documentary partly because the film has evolved organically over several years with a vague initial objective which was reshaped by unforeseen events and unintended outcomes.
In the film we follow painter Barbora Kysilkova, a Czech painter, living in Oslo and petty criminal Karl-Bertil Nordland in a disconcerting but uplifting relationship.
Nordland and an accomplice steal two of Kysilkova’s paintings from a gallery in Oslo. He is apprehended and put on trial but as he was drunk or high at the time of the theft he is unable to say where the paintings are . Kysilkova who has been confused and annoyed by the affair approaches Nordland and asks if he would sit for a portrait and he agrees. Over several weeks she draws and paints him and his girlfriend and they become close.
At one point Norland has a serious car accident and is hospitalised and subsequently charged with driving and drug offenses. While in hospital and jail Kysilkova continues to visit him.
She eventually discovers one of her paintings in a basement storage area and in the final minutes of the film we see Kysilkova and Norland installing a new exhibition which includes the stolen painting and several portraits she has made of Nordland over the past years.
The two exhibitions bookend the story with the opening of the film showing glimpses of her first exhibition taken on a cellphone at the opening.
The film focusses on the transformation and the redemption of Norland from small time criminal and addict to a man engaged in study to create a new purposeful life.
A major theme of the film is the creative process and power of art in bringing about personal transformation. Early on in the film after Kysilkova has done a series of drawings of Nordland she shows him a finished portrait. He is astounded and transfixed by the artwork, partly because he recognises not just his physical representation but also something about himself. He is also in awe of Kysilkova’s skill as an artist.
Over the period of her relationship with the thief Kysilkova also acts as a detective / psychologist, probing Nordland about his motivation behind the theft and the paintings whereabouts, but she also attempts to understand him and in doing so Nordland begins to realise much about himself.
Whether it is the encounters with the art process and his portraits or his discussions with Kysilkova which lead to his salvation is never fully acknowledged but clearly their complex relationship has made a difference.
Director Benjamin Ree has shown a dogged determination to create a film which he would initially have had no idea how it would unfold with so many of the events, images eventually coming together.
The Auckland Art Gallery’s latest blockbuster show “Toi Tu Toi Ora” is not just big with 300 works by 111 artists it is also important in providing an overview of Maori art of the last 70 years which has built on the traditional approaches of Maori as well as creating new forms to address contemporary issues. The exhibition also shows how the art produced by Maori coincides with, comments on and expands work by Pakeha artists.
The exhibition includes a number of iconic artworks by some of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most significant artists – Ralph Hotere, Robyn Kahukiwa, Buck Nin, Fiona Pardington, Michael Parekowhai, Lisa Reihana, Rachael Rakena, Peter Robinson, Cliff Whiting and Arnold Manaaki Wilson. The works include painting, sculpture, printmaking, clay-making, jewellery and body adornment, photography, digital media, film and installation art.
Fiona Pardington ,”Davis Kea Wings”
Western culture has been dominated by the Judeo Christian notions of The Creation. a God who creates everything with a couple of clicks of the fingers, it’s a concept which is ingrained despite its obvious absurdity.
This monotheistic approach is also at variance with what we know about the creation of life which involves a male and female. So the Maori creation myth which has Ranginui, the sky father, and Papatuanuku, the earth mother, emerging out of darkness and nothingness seems a bit more grounded in reality
Toi Tu Toi Ora: takes this creation myth as the basis and in many ways the continuing focus of artistic enquiry for Maori art and in the first rooms of the exhibition are a group of works which explore notions of the universe.
There is Peter Robinson’s “I am I am not” a work consisting of the binary zeros and ones which herald the beginning of life along with his “Universe”, a bulbous abstract depiction of the beginnings of nothingness and expanding solar system. Here also is Robert Janke’s neon work “Whanua Kora” where we are taken back into the void. The room also features Ralph Hotere’s black painting “Te Aupouri” where we witness the birth of colour.
Hemi Macgregor, “Agent Provacateur”
Curator of the exhibition. Nigel Borell (Pirirākau, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui, Te Whakatōhea) says: “Toi Tū Toi Ora is organised around the Māori creation narrative as a way to enter into a conversation about the importance of Māori art and artists, and to explore what unites these artists across space and time.” “As visitors explore the exhibition, they will literally step into the creation story, beginning with Te Kore (the great nothingness) before traveling through to Te Po (the darkness), then the separation of Ranginui and Papatūānuku before entering Te Ao Mārama (the world of light and life)”
Throughout the exhibition are major works by significant Maori artists including Lisa Reihana’s massive video work “Iti” which has previously been on display at the Aotea Centre, Shona Rapira Davis’s monumental sculpture “Nga Morehu” of 1982 featuring a group performing a karanga and Selwyn Muru’s “Resurrection of Te Whiti over Taranaki “of 1975.
Many of the works in the exhibition preserve and build on the traditional knowledge, technical skills and understanding of materials. This can be seen in Kura Te Waru Rewiri’s “Arohanui”, Cliff Whiting’s “Tangaroa “and the work of Manos Nathan. A number of the works are more obviously political as with the work of Emily Karaka, Hemi Macgregor and Shane Cotton. There are also examples of the emerging landscape and figurative painters with work by Elizabeth Ellis, Marilyn Web and Katerina Mataira.
One new installation which could easily be missed is sited on the upper exteriors terrace. The work by Ana Iti “Takoto (Laying Down)” the artist has made casts of the volcanic rock wall which enclosed the Albert Barracks and most of the adjoining Albert Park
In the Gallery’s North Atrium, is a large installation by Emily Karaka, and in the South Atrium there is a two-storey-high installation by Sandy Adsett based on kōwhaiwhai and a dramatic installation based on the female deity Hine-nui-te-po by the Mata Aho Collective in collaboration with artist Maureen Lander.
In the Mackelvie Gallery Shane Cotton has co-curated an exhibition room that will places work by contemporary Māori artists alongside the Gallery’s historical art collection so Arnold Wilson’s abstract sculpture representing a torso/head “He tangata, He tangata” is included with a group of old master portraits.
Several of the artists have a number of works in the show which plot their developments. Shane Cotton has works from his early sepia period with “Cross” through to his five storey high off-site work “Maunga” in the Britomart precinct. There is also a new commissioned work “Te Puawai” from the artist which features a .small dinghy touching on ideas about voyaging, the transmittance of cultural knowledge and the legacy of colonialism.
Shane Cotton, “Te Puawai”
Peter Robinson is well represented with his “Painting “ of 1996 where he uses an airplane / waka image and numbers reflecting the blood quantum of determining ‘Maoriness’. He also has one of the final works in the show with “Strategic Plan” of 1998 with his clever take on the global art world and the place of Maori. One of his strategies is listed as “Cash in on fashionable contemporary dialogues such as ethnicity and marginalisation”.
There are a number of works by Michael Parekowhai although his carved piano work “Story of a New Zealand River” is not included. His works in the show all subvert the Eurocentric approach to art. There are three of his suited mannequins from the “Poorman, Beggarman Thief (Poorman)” series scattered through the galleries all with the “Hello My name is Hori” label on their suits. There are also a set of his Magritte derived figures as well as the ambiguous and enigmatic, elephant in the room “Te Ao Hurihuri”, the two bookends referencing New Zeeland links with western civilization, history and classification as well as colonisation .
As well as the major artist in the show are a few newcomers with a set of works by Hiria Anderson where she responds to her immediate environment and the marae with simple representations which carry a strong sense of place and narrative.
There are many interesting works such as Claudine Muru’s glassworks based on kumara forms, Brett Graham’s carved stealth bomber “Te Hokioi” and John Walsh’s ”Pare to my Place” where gods and anthropomorphic figures meet at the junction of the physical and spiritual worlds.
Claudine Muru, From the Cultivation Series
This exhibition shows the depth of Maori art and the ways in which addresses cultural, social, political and personal ideas. It also demonstrates that there is a distinct Maori voice which looks at the present day issues always with an eye on the past.
The Ryman Healthcare Season of The Sleeping Beauty
Royal New Zealand Ballet Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland Until November 6th Then Bruce Mason Theatre, Takapuna November 11 & 12
Reviewed by John DalyPeoples
This week on the stage of the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Kate Kadow, in the role of Princess Aurora, appeared to inhabit a different world from the dancers around her. Her dazzling display combined supreme elegance, technical fluidity and emotional richness that was electrifying in its power and urgency. She showed that she was not just great classical dancer but a sparkling gem of pure movement.
The Sleeping Beauty ranks among the top dozen ballets. It has a simple story and superb choreography but it also has social, political and psychological complexity, plus a density that makes it a rich dance work.
The Royal New Zealand Ballet’s latest production manages to combine all the elements of the fairy tale, pantomime and the tragic fable along with riveting theatre.
The work was originally performed before Tsarist Russian court audiences in 1890. What they saw on stage for most of the production was their own environment reflected back to them: a hierarchy of positions and roles all acted out within the confines of richly decorated interiors, with courtiers and noble people who knew their rank and position in a fantastically structured society.
For many of them, The Sleeping Beauty was something a cautionary tale about the ever present terror of political and social unrest.
It is the evil Carabosse with her attendants who make manifest this lurking terror, which imprisons the court for a hundred years. It seems remarkably prescient of Petipa (and Tchaikovsky) that 100 years after the first production in the 1990’s Russia would emerge from its period of political and social slumber.
There is also a strong psychological aspect to the work with the interplay between the forces of good and evil jousting for the mind of the young princess.
The ballet is filled with fabulous dance; elegant courtly dances, some almost abstract work by the Carabosse’s attendants, touches of rustic folk dance and ravishing displays of classical ballet.
Kate Kadow shines throughout and even managed the tricky Rose Adagio superbly. That sequence, seemingly invented by a demented choreographer, requires the dancer to balance on point while promenading with her four suitors.
It is as technically challenging as many of the great gymnastic routines and both cast and audience spent a few breath-stopping moments while she completed the movement.
From the second act on, when she dances with her Prince Désiré, her remarkable solo work was replaced with some incisive duos as she danced with Laurynas Vejalis.
Vejalis’ muscular dancing was enthralling and in his first minutes on stage brings an intense feeling of melancholy to his work. His power and tautness conveyed a strong sense of sexuality that is later liberated in his dancing with Kadow. Their “dream sequence” duo in which they dance barely touching is moving and poignant, the spaces between them pulsing with energy.
Vejalis has only been a soloist with the company since the beginning of the year but is already a talent to watch.
The six Fairies representing various attributes of the royal Princess all danced with lightness and effervescence, projecting the joy of the child’s birth while The Fairy Cavaliers who accompany them gave brilliant athletic performances representing the more physical qualities of courtly nobility.
The Lilac Fairy is the strong moral force in the ballet and Sara Garbowski provided an enveloping protective warmth for the young princess as well as dancing with a steely determination when confronting Carabosse.
The minor roles of the four Prince suitors and Prince Désiré’s attendants provided brilliantly restrained performances.
Loughlin Prior in the role of Master of Ceromonies apperared ot have taken on the mantle of Sir Jon Trimmer with a elegant but slightly whimsical performance
During the Chapter Four Wedding sequence where everybody shows of their skills Leonora Voigtlander and Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson in their cat masks added a whimsical humour to the dance, while Katherine Skelton (Princess Florine) and a superbly nimble Kihiro Kusukami (Bluebird) provided a delightful reflection on loves constancy.
Kirby Selchow as Carabosse
Kirby Selchow gave an inspired interpretation of the wicked Carabosse in her tightly bodiced enormous black dress. Her ferocious dancing with dramatic flourishes brought a sense of drama and dread to the work. Her attendants in their reptilian masks, provided a sense of malevolence and her attendant Morfran danced by Paul Mathews came into his own as one of the Aurora’s suitors
The highly coloured costumes, especially the pinks verged on the garish but within the colour schemes of the nineteenth century Russian court were highly appropriate.
The sets provided a magnificent setting for the ballet, with the second act woodland scene and its dark forest interior providing a phantastic foil to the decorative splendour of the first and last court scenes.
Railways Studios: How a Government Design Studio Helped Build New Zealand
A definitive illustrated history of the graphic work of the railways studios.
By Peter Alsop, Neill Atkinson, Katherine Milburn and Richard Wolfe
Te Papa Press
RRP : $70.00
Reviewed by John Daly-Peopl;es
In 1920 New Zealand Railways established its own Railways Studios with the aim of promoting the railways as well as New Zealand as a tourist destination. The Studios produced posters, pamphlets, maps and pictorial postage stamps promoting NZR’s services. They also undertook work for many other government and business clients that advertised at stations, inside carriages and on trackside hoardings.
One hundred years on a new book “Railways Studios, the design studio of the New Zealand Railways” tells the remarkable story of the way in which a government department helped connect New Zealand physically and socially, producing advertising for a range of clients and dominating outdoor advertising.
The Studios worked closely with the Tourist Department, local authorities and chambers of commerce to publicise travel, accommodation and sightseeing packages. They turned out a series of bright, attractive posters highlighting the scenic and therapeutic charms of rail destinations such as the Bay of Islands, Tauranga, Rotorua, Napier, National Park and Timaru. They also promoted combined rail/motor tours to Lake Wanaka, Mount Cook and Fiordland. These images managed to create an image of the country as a magical wonderland of almost mythical proportions and while the glories of Mt Cook, Fiordland and Rotorua were promoted so to were the relative wonders of Timaru, Helensville and Te Aroha.
Early New Zealand advertising generally lacked the sophistication of American or European marketing. NZR posters in the 1920s usually mimicked the style and tone of British railway advertising. Most featured sun-drenched beaches and ‘bathing belles’, towering mountain peaks, lush forests or exotic Maori. But by the early 1930s the artists in the studios were producing more daring abstract designs that often featured a montage of images and bold colours and shapes.
The designs occasionally strayed into the areas of false advertising as can be seen in the cover image of the book designed by Marcus King which features what might have been intended as an elaborate pah site but looks more like a European-style castle sitting above a New Zealand vista. The promotion of New Zealand also saw the Studios providing advertising at various expositions throughout New Zealand as well as at world fairs such as the British Empire Exhibition in London in 1924.
The railway station and railway carriages were ideal venues for mass communication and such intense advertising and promotion can still be seen in places like the London Tube stations and carriages.
Not only did the stations and carriages have advertising about the railways they also provided advertising material for range of consumer products ranging from food, paint and clothing through to automobiles, petrol companies and airlines.
There is a chapter on the Studios association with the New Zealand Railways Magazine, a forerunner the Listener which was published between 1926 and 1940. Alongside railway news, the magazine promoted domestic tourism and New Zealand verse, short fiction, humour, sports news, historical yarns, biographical sketches and book reviews. Among the many contributors were James Cowan, Robin Hyde and Denis Glover.
Whatever the promotion – from rail travel and tourism to enlistment in the army, clothing and health promotion – the Studios played a role. Thousands of its designs influenced public attitudes, shaping how New Zealanders saw themselves.
As well an insight into how the studios worked the book provides a time capsule of life in New Zealand and the importance of the railway network. There are numerous photographs of various stations around New Zealand from the impressive main railway station in Wellington to the small station at Rakaia.
The book is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of images alongside the well-researched chapters which touch on the history of rail transport in New Zealand, In covering the history of advertising the book also reveals the artists who worked for the Studios. A few of the names are familiar as artists in their own right such as John Holmwood and Gordon Tovey but most have not been recognised and the book provides an opportunity to recognise their talents.
Both Ann Robinson and Terry Stringer have art practices that stretch back 50 years to their time at art school. Over that time they have continued to produce innovation work and have been at the forefront of the development of New Zealand glass art and sculpture.
Both artists draw inspiration from the natural world, Stringer with an emphasis on the human form while Robinson on biological and organic shapes.
Robinsons use of natural forms incorporates the shapes of seed pods, leaf and fern forms into her cast glass pieces. There is a strong geometric base to most of her works with an interplay between rigid geometry and the abstracted forms of botanical shapes and patterns.
There is also an emphasis on strong colours which derive from Nature, the yellow glow of the sun, the greens of the bush blues of the sky and sea and the reds of sunset and the volcanic earth. This ability to capture the essence of light and colour is a remarkable technical and aesthetic accomplishment
In the exhibition two works show the influence of natural forms with “Capense, Curved Vase ($26,000) and “Folium, Curved Vase” ($29,000) where ferns frond shapes are embossed on the dynamic flowering, organic form
There are two works which are much more geometric in form, the red “Geometric series “ vase ($35,000) and “Wedge between Earth and Sky” ($42,000). The geometric nature of the two works and the square indentation in their middle gives them the look of ceremonial objects. The technical masterly is most evident in “Wedge” where the edges become almost slivers of glass.
Two works are in her distinctive flying saucer like bowl shape. The darkly red “Transit” ($40,000) features what initially appears to be a drop of blood on the curved surface, but as the title suggests it is a link to The Transit of Venus so the bowl itself becomes a model of the solar system with the red lump as the orbiting planet. There is also a narrative element to the large bowl “Storm – “Scape, Landscape Series” ($28,000) with its striated surface featuring several seabirds.
Terry Stringer, Icon Head in Architecture
The Terry Stringer bronze works continue his interest in the depiction of figures where there is a tension between the two dimensional and three-dimensional. As in most of his work there is a playful challenging of the viewpoint of the viewer and the concepts of perspective. The viewer perception changes as they move around the works revealing and concealing aspects of the forms.
This interest in the intersection of sculptural form and architecture is obvious in “Icon Head in Architecture” ($28,000) where two heads and hands are set within an architectural fragment. This work references figures in Greek pediments as well as Michelangelo’s “Slave” sculptures where figures struggle to emerge from blocks of marble.
In one work, ‘The Balcony Scene’ ($4000) which features Romeo and Juliet the viewer is required. to upend the work so thar the lovers hands entwine. Entwined hand also feature in Remember Head ($35000) and “He Her Here There”($5500).
The artist also plays with the visual puzzles of the Italian Giuseppe Arcimboldo who created imaginative portrait heads made entirely of other objects such as fruits and vegetables. With his “Arcimboldo Mask ($4500) Stringer creates a slight optical illusion where leaves becomes eyes.
The largest of the works in the show is “Art, Truth and Beauty” ($45,000) which features a large, almost primitive head, similar to some of Picasso’s portrait busts, connected to a classical facade
New Zealand Arts Review 