Thankfully Manifesto didn’t have a manifesto, any sort of declaration of the intent or views on issues, but they did make manifest their intention to entertain, amaze and transport the audience.
Nine musicians with a selection of drums, cymbals and bells ranged above a group of white clad dancers who sat, calmly facing the audience. But then the first burst of cymbals sent a shock wave through the dancers, followed ten seconds later by another explosive sound with a corresponding eruption of the dancers – and so it begins – torrents of sound which galvanized the dancers into hectic sequences of dance.as they responded to the changing tempo of the drumming. They seemed to be responding as though to electric shocks or the physical impact of the sound waves with their somersaults, kicks, lifts, throws and breakdance moves.
In one sequence one of the dancers took on the role of choreographer / director, controlling the chaotic assemblage with wild gestures.
As with all dance the there is a connection between music and movement but with Manifesto, they are for the most part inextricably linked, each beat corresponding to a jump, twist, leap or limb gesture.
The performances are a mix of modern dance, aerobics, gym workout, athletic workout (one practicing their archery skills) and individual self-absorbed responses.
Some of the sequences are reminiscent of the stylish Cirque de Soliel routines, others are more poetic in their grace and line. There was even sequence which could have alluded to The Rite of Spring with tightly grouped bodies. Other times their movements were epileptic, militaristic or like that of clockwork figures.
One sequence saw the dancers performance a series of fast paced pas de due as they raced around the stage showing off various dynamic, dexterous, challenging , dangerous and expressive moves. These actions and reactions had much in common with contemporary dance
There were a couple respites and in one of periods a Bob Marley look a like engaged briefly with each of the drummers as well as the audience before being assaulted by a thunderous attack from the combined drummers.
The show, choreographed by Melbourne-based Stephanie Lake was full of relentless energy and amazing invention and there is only two more shows on.
In the early nineteenth century it was fashionable to do a Grand Tour with Italy as the prime destination. Artists, writers and composers all sought to travel there to find inspiration.
The APO’s “In The Italian Style” presented works by three composers who were themselves were enthralled by various aspects of Italian music, history and landscape.
The first work on the programme was Schubert’s Overture in C “In the Italian Style” which was not a response to Italy itself but rather to the interest in Italian music at the time , notably the exoticism of Rossini. Schubert’s impressionist depiction of Italy conveys images of street life, dances and the leisurely stroll through classical ruins captures the energy, colours and contrasts of his invented Italy which is a measure of the composer’s ability to convey images and sight he had never seen. The work also shows the young eighteen-year-old trying to move his compositions out of the traditions of Viennese music of the time.
Mendelssohn was twenty-one when he travelled to Italy where he was captivated by the art, architecture and landscape. When he was given a commission, he used his impressions of the country as the basis of his Symphony No 4 “The Italian”. While he had been despairing of Italian concert music, he was taken with local Neapolitan folk dance styles like the saltarello. This influence is seen in the final wild, breakneck movement which captures the drama of the dance and Mendelssohn’s vision of Italy.
The first three movements were filled with dramatic contrasts,- massive sounds which suggested the grandeur of the Alps as well as softer sounds which evoked contemplation of art works and architecture.
Conductor Giordana Bellincampi displayed his astute conducting skills throughout the concert, at times creating dynamic waves of sound while at other times having orchestra whisper as in the opening of the second movement which depicts dawn breaking with bursts of sunlight.
The major work on the programme was Hector Berlioz’s Harold in Italy with Robert Ashworth and his viola taking on the character of Harold, the heroic figure based loosely on Byron’s Childe Harold, a wanderer who observes scenes of Italian life.
The four movements depicting outdoor scenes from various parts of the country were all derived from the composer’s experiences while travelling in Italy.
While the work is the composer’s personal response to Italy there seem to be reference to Byron’s epic poem throughout the work as in the references to Florence, its landscape and history.
A softer feeling for her fairy halls.
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps
To laughing life, with her redundant horn.
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps,
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,
And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn.
Berlioz infuses his music with evocative imagery – the drama of the mountains, the softness of the light and the richness of the country’s art and history.
Robert Ashworth’s muted viola sounds helped paint an initial picture of the world-weary traveller but there were also touches of wonderment, solitude and merriment conveyed by his instrument.
Much of the time Ashworth played as though part of the orchestra, his sounds nestling in the luxurious colours of the orchestra but then there would come passages of sheer exuberance and his playing would rise above the orchestra akin to the emotional outbursts of Harlod himself in his reactions to scenes and events.
Ashworth himself was attentive to the conductor but also the orchestra and he followed their playing intensely, as though he were Harold witnessing a new spectacle.
There was a clever bit theatricality at the close of the work as Ashworth exited the stage to reappear a few minutes later up by the organ where he was joined by a string trio to play the final moments of the work.
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Straight off a highly acclaimed season at London’s National Theatre, Auckland Theatre Company is presenting The Effect, written by BAFTA, Golden Globe and Emmy award-winning co-executive producer and writer Lucy Prebble of the HBO international hit series, Succession (2018-2023) in their 2024 line up.
“The Effect” will be directed by Benjamin Kilby-Henson (King Lear) and feature major stage and screen stars including; Jayden Daniels (Head High, Celebrity Treasure Island), Zoë Robins (Amazon’s The Wheel of Time), Jarod Rawiri (Long Day’s Journey into Night) and New Zealand screen legend Sara Wiseman (Under the Vines, Creamerie).
British playwright and producer Lucy Prebble shows all the razor-sharp flair that made her a star writer on Succession in this deft dissection of medical ethics and the nature of human attraction.
The review of the work in the New York Times gave it a strong recommendation.
“Are you in love, or are you merely experiencing a giddy dopamine rush? Are those two states even meaningfully different? Is there a true, innermost “you” that is distinguishable from your neurochemistry?
These are some of the tricky questions explored by Lucy Prebble’s thought-provoking play, “The Effect”
The play revolves around two young people, Tristan and Connie, who take part in a trial for a dopamine-based psychiatric drug with powerful antidepressant properties. Initially, they seem to have little in common — he’s a working class lad from East London; she’s a bougie psychology student from Canada — but as the trial progresses, a tender rapport develops.
Throughout the study, the participants are monitored by two psychiatric doctors, Lorna and Toby, who debate their findings: Is the drug pulling their subjects together, or are their feelings organic? And if one of the trial participants was actually receiving a placebo the whole time, what then? Prebble keeps us guessing.
Throughout, the pair’s gradual transition from wary awkwardness to intense mutual magnetism is convincingly rendered, in large part thanks to the actors’ terrific onstage chemistry.
Things get messy in the latter stages of the experiment, as both the doses and the emotional stakes increase, leading to a fraught and affecting denouement.
The stiltedly ambivalent friendship between the two middle-aged doctors provides an intriguing subplot. We learn that Lorna and Toby once romantically involved, many years ago. Lorna is prone to bouts of depression, but refuses to take medication; Toby, on the other hand, is a true pharmaceutical believer.
“The Effect” is healthily skeptical about scientifically deterministic approaches to emotional well-being, channeling a dissenting tradition that dates back to the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1960s; its moral sensibility recalls Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” The play’s revival is particularly timely as a new generation of wellness gurus have, in recent years, latched onto the idea that much of human behavior can be explained away as neurotransmitters or hormones simply doing their thing.
Prebble invites us to ponder the implications of such thinking. Connie is initially uncomfortable with the notion that two people can fall in love just like that (“It takes work,” she insists), and wary of her attraction to Tristan. He, in response, makes the case for mystery, and thus articulates the play’s key message: That a world in which all feeling is viewed as a matter of chemistry would be a bleak one indeed.”
City Gallery Wellington has recently published a stunning monograph on Reuben Paterson which follows on from his exhibition Reuben Paterson: The Only Dream Left which was exhibited at the gallery last year.
The book is lavishly illustrated with works covering his thirty years of art practice and features writings by Witi Ihimaera, curator and writer Geraldine Barlow, and the exhibition’s curators Aaron Lister and Karl Chitham.
Reuben Paterson, Pounamu and The Jade Cat
There are over 100 full colour illustrations as well as some ”booklet” inserts which captures the unique range and depth of Paterson’s art from his early glitter paintings to his recent major sculptural commissions.
There are images of several of his monumental works such as the “Get Down Upon Your Knees”, the 8-metre square work shown at the Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane as well as the mural work “Andale, Andale” at Auckland’s Newmarket Railway Station. There are also the “The Golden Promise” at the Massey University Albany campus as well as the controversial ”Freedom Flowers”, the ANZ cash point terminal on Ponsonby Road commissioned for the 2015 Pride Festival.
His use of glitter and diamond dust on canvas or paper of stereotypical images are manipulated and transformed by his individual treatment of colour, design, pattern and texture. His images often referenced botanical, op art, or Māori iconography along with images which are commercial or kitsch. The sparkling surfaces create an ambivalent visual description with works such as the “Take my hand and off we stride” featuring the idyllic Pacific Island palm tree landscape.
Underneath the seductive images there are more complex ideas and viewpoints which take the viewer into the artist’s view of nature, the tangible and the symbolic as well as his own whakapapa referencing his Ngati Rangitihi, Ngai Tuhoe, Tuhourangi and Scottish descent.
Paterson’s political or social messages are also referenced in some of the works where he has used animal images such as the tiger in “Blessing”, conveying the sense of power, sexuality and fear. These works were motivated by his efforts to highlight the inequality of the ‘gay panic’ provocation defence for murder that was in place before a repeal of the Crimes Act in 2009.
A culmination of many of his ideas and technical expertise has been “Guide Kaiārahi” the major commission for the Auckland Art Gallery. The idea for the ten-metre-high waka which is made from hundreds of shimmering crystals, originated in the legend of a phantom waka that appeared at Lake Tarawera ten days before the eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886. Combining references to natural and supernatural realms, the sculpture draws upon Māori cosmology and creation narratives.
Reuben Paterson, “Guide Kaiārahi” (detail)
The book shows the extent of his influences and interests apart from his use of cheesy imagery – Dutch still life painting, elements of Greek and Roman art, Op art and Rorschach patterns. The essays also reveal some of his interests in scientific, political and social ideas along with the spiritual aspects of his work.
Nature and botanical subjects are central to the artists life and many of the artist works His father was a landscape gardener and he has a garden himself which can be seen as an influence on his work with its emphasis on colour, seasons, birth and transformation.
One major work which focusses on Nature is “The Golden Bearing”, a life size golden tree which links to the various emblematic trees over history, from George Fraziers “The Golden Bough”, Eastern and Mayan ideas of creation as well as that of Maori.
Reuben Paterson, The Golden Bearing
As Witi Ihimaera says of the work “In Paterson’s garden the tree is a promise of the legacy of nature for a humankind that appears hellbent on destroying the planet. It is an achingly awe-inspiring way point from which we can orient ourselves to a future if we wish it to become a paradise regained rather than lost”.
The book itself is an elegant and lavish production with designers Extended Whānau ensuring that Paterson’s work is presented in a way which allows for an appreciation and understanding of his paintings and sculptural work.
The images and texts manage to not only show the development of the artist’s work but link the poetic, the political and the personal to show an artist who is deeply committed to exploring the many threads which make up contemporary New Zealand culture.
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The three works in the second APO concert of the Premier Series for 2024: Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, and the Overture to Rossini’s The Barber of Seville were all written within a thirty year period, 1786-1816: the Mozart in 1785-86, the Beethoven in 1812, and the Rossini in 1816. This period, on the cusp between the ‘classical’ and ‘Romantic’ periods, is one of the most consequential in the history of music. Each of these works is a masterwork in its own right; collectively they made for a supremely enjoyable and satisfying evening. The APO under Giordano Bellincampi, with South Korean soloist Yeol Eum Son in the Mozart, were in fine fettle.
Rossini just missed out on being a contemporary of Mozart’s by being born in the year after Mozart’s death in 1791; Beethoven was twenty when Mozart died, just on the brink of his great career.
The Overture to The Barber of Seville scurries along entertainingly in Rossini’s instantly recognisable and ingratiating style. It is ‘feel good’ music, clearly enjoyed by the musicians, and bound to put listeners into a receptive frame of mind.
With her pale skin and flamboyant scarlet gown, Yeol Eum Son made a striking visual contrast to the pervasive black-and-white of the orchestra. She proved to be an elegant and forceful soloist plunging instantly and confidently into the minor-key depths and mysteries of one of Mozart’s greatest scores.
One of only two piano concertos in a minor key (the other is No. 20), this work has the most elaborate instrumentation of any of Mozart’s concertos, being scored for one flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings: it is especially rare in Mozart for oboes and clarinets to be used simultaneously. One of the great pleasures of seeing this work performed live is to be able to witness as well as hear the subtle and intricate interplay between the wind instruments and strings so important in the emotional ambience of the music. After the rapt complexities of the long opening movement, the limpid simplicity of the slow movement was ravishing; the deft variations of the finale, too, were finely executed.
Apparently the young Beethoven once witnessed a rehearsal of this concerto (presumably with Wolfgang Amadeus at the keyboard) and remarked to his companion: “We shall never be able to do anything like that’. His own break-through piano concerto No. 3 written in 1800, four years later, shares the same C-minor key. Twelve years later Beethoven’s grand Seventh Symphony was one of the triumphs of his career. It was performed with the composer conducting in Vienna in 2013 at a charity concert for soldiers wounded in a battle with the forces of Napoleon (Beethoven’s fallen hero). The first audience apparently demanded an immediate repeat of the second movement allegretto. While not going quite so far as that, the shouts of acclamation from Auckland’s Town Hall audience registered genuine excitement at the conclusion of this electrifying performance. From the solemn and sonorous opening bars to the disciplined frenzy of the finale this marvellous music engaged both musicians and audience alike.
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After a brief, and apparently successful, season of Twelfth Night at Q Theatre last year, Pop Up Globe Shakespeare Company has popped back up again in 2024. This time with one of Shakespeare’s safest classics Romeo and Juliet running in a brief back-to-back season with a remounted Twelfth Night, at the larger SkyCity Theatre.
This venue is a far cry from the company’s heyday in the scaffolded pseudo-replica behind the Q Theatre, followed by 3 years in the leafy environs of Ellerslie. Romeo and Juliet makes the transition well and the house-full sign was out for Opening Night.
This is rumbustious theatre with the primary aim of entertaining people. And if it manages to change a few minds that’s a bonus. The Opening Night Romeo and Juliet audience was an interesting and highly-varied bunch with a huge age spread and attending for many different reasons. Not unlike the audiences at Ellerslie. Nor, come to think of it, many of Shakespeare’s own audiences.
This one ranged from boomers to their grandchildren and all points in between. There were probably some serious Shakespearean afficionados, but many seemed to be longstanding Globe-converts along with some who were just looking for a good entertaining night out, rather than a draining one with significant mental effort required to ‘understand’ often subjective new work.
David Lawrence’s Romeo and Juliet certainly had something for everyone. No longer in the scaffold-replica Globe, he has developed a close-knit ensemble that works and moved them around both the stage and the theatre itself so that they came to own the joint. This resulted in part of the audience being on stage, and the actors spending a fair bit of time in the auditorium.
More importantly and perhaps significantly, he achieved this with a cast that largely exuded strength. Today, holding a large-ish room for a long-ish time is an effort for many actors – even more so when the language and its Shakespearean rhythms are pretty important and this cast manages to do so almost uniformly. Juliet’s balcony speech(Natasha Daniel) is a great example, accentuated by her very location in the theatre. Her clarity and power was something shared throughout the ensemble. No spoiler alert about where she was though.
In fact, all the more serious characters hold their ground well, and set things up for others to generate a load of belly-laughs. Let’s face it, pretty much everyone knows that R&J is rife with deaths, so why not play the lead-up to them comedically. Keeps the masses entertained y’know. And while we’re about it, let’s make the deaths a bit gory and gruesome as well! So it’s perhaps no accident that the ticketing categorisation for this Romeo and Juliet avoids the conventional header ‘Theatre, tragedy’ and uses ‘Theatre, comedy’ instead. It is. And it works. As both a comedy, but one undershot with tragedy.
Many of Lawrence’s cast have appeared with Globe in one form or another over several years. For example, I found Salesi Le’ota (Nurse), who I first saw in Globe’s Hamlet 5 or 6 years back, has grown immensely, developing his strength, energy and immaculate timing considerably He is at the heart of the comedy, ably supported by Frith Horan, whose energetic, clownish Mercutio really becomes the ‘saucy merchant’ Nurse brands him to be and almost overshadows Tybalt (Adrian Hooke) and even Friar Laurence (Kevin Keys).
That said, this production remains a tragedy at its core. And Natasha Daniel and Alistair Sewell (Romeo) give us two very young lovers drawn together by adolescent passion but tragically fated to wind up nowhere. They carry it well.
However, this remains essentially a theatrical entertainment. The cast is aware of this and the audience is too. And that leaves plenty of space for the delivery of Shakespeare’s words, time to play with the emotions he has drawn and just plain have fun.
In summary ? Well, Romeo and Juliet seems almost like a theatrical production about a theatrical production. That is just great and it’s refreshingly good to see the Pop Up Globe Company at work again. – Enjoy
This was a concert of impassioned music across three centuries. Or four if you count the exquisite Bach encore played by Julian Steckel after his commanding performance of Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto (representing the twentieth century), which was preceded by Gemma Peacock’s sonorous White Horses, representing the 21st century and followed by Tchaikovsky’s mighty Symphony No. 6, The Pathétique, representing the nineteenth century.
‘Passion & Mystery’ was the opening concert of the Auckland Philarmonia Orchestra’s 2024 Premier Series, under its capable conductor Giordano Bellincampi.
I am not a musician; I can’t read a musical score or play a musical instrument, so am incapable of informed discrimination when it comes to performances, though I can point to more than half a century of avidly listening to concerts, radio and records as a dedicated consumer of music.
I found this an absorbing and enjoyable concert. All three works are emotionally intense, as was to be expected given the concert’s moniker, ‘Passion and Mystery’, though sufficiently various in musical idiom to avoid monotony. So far as I could tell the orchestra played splendidly throughout and was well directed by the resident conductor. The house was nearly full and the applause was deservedly prolonged.
Gemma Peacocke’s White Horses is a kind of orchestral tone poem, inspired by an extraordinary event in 1937 when a pioneer female New Zealand aviator, Waud Farmar, fell to her death in the ocean. In the words of the composer – a New Zealander working in the United States – ‘Farmar leapt without warning from a bi-plane above Cook Strait…The pilot saw her hit the sea and disappear.’ The pilot said: ‘The sea was pretty rough, with white horses everywhere’. These words provide the clue for Peacocke’s music treatment with lots of ominous rumblings of percussion, and intermittent sharp accents from strings and wind instruments. The sonic range is impressive, from a poignant violin solo to thunderous orchestral climaxes.
German cellist Julian Steckel was at his best in the intense opening Largo of Shostakovich’s sinewy concerto dating from 1966, the year of the composer’s 60th birthday. Like its predecessor, the concerto was written for the great Mistislav Rostropovich. How fortunate the Russian composer was to have such sublime musicians as Rostropovich, David Oistrakh and Svatoslav Richter for whom to write his concerti! Unsurprisingly the score exploits to the full the virtuosic capacities of the instrument, demands which the soloist was clearly capable of meeting with ease and polish.
Tchaikovsky’s last symphony was first performed just nine days after his death in 1893, and it is hard to avoid inferring that he poured his heart and soul into it as a kind of final testament. The music is remarkably various, from the achingly lovely melody of the opening movement, through the delicacy and fire of the middle movements to the surging, sobbing melancholia of the final Adagio. The orchestra sounded magnificent throughout every nuance of sentiment wrung from the composer’s feelings. A cathartic experience altogether for the satisfied audience.
.Te Ao O Hinepehinga (Natalie Te Rehua) and Tāwhai Pātai (Kruze Tangira) Photo: Andi Crown
Hyperspace
By Albert Belz
A Te Pou Theatre production
In collaboration with
Auckland Theatre Company
Director Tainui Tukiwaho
Choreography Jack Gray
Production Design Filament 11, Rachel Marlow
Costume Design Alison Reid
Sound Design Crescendo Studio, David Atai
ASB Waterfront Theatre
Until 24 February
Review by Malcolm Calder
9 February 2024
I wasn’t living in New Zealand in the nineties. But I’m told the social scene and context here was pretty international in flavour and that Wellington echoed what was happening in Sydney, Singapore or Saskatchewan – albeit with a touch of local flavour.
However, it’s important to remember that the 1990s are now 30 years ago. Back then our coffee obsession was only just beginning, there was no internet in everyone’s pocket and jazzercise was an important social interaction for many. In lots of ways this era summed up the golden years of a then youthful gen-X’s attitudes, its focus on lifestyle and, to some extent, its sense of entitlement.
Alex Belz’s new play Hyperspace is perhaps set in 1990 or thereabouts and opens with huge energy, some great aerobics moves and a thumping soundtrack filled with music and popular culture references that many will recall 30 years later. It also evokes an incessant and subtle awareness of the onward march of American socio-cultural, habits and pastimes with an Aotearoa twist.
But, as the first act meandered along, I wondered what ATC and Te Pou were doing presenting something that was little more than a trite and self-indulgent dance party – almost a rather one-dimensional follow up to Belz’s earlier and well-received prequel Astroman. It seemed little more than a gen-X take on the nineties with a bit of familial debate thrown in and loads of dance party atmosphere. Sure there was a little character development, the music got my feet tapping and the lycra was very colourful, but each of the characters seemed fairly shallow and obsessed with themselves and with trivia – perhaps because they were. It was all a bit indulgent, a bit long, and didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
Until we got to Belz’s hook. He uses a potentially life-threatening physical issue to do so, and his play swiftly morphs into something that sympathetically and realistically addresses a whole range of societal and emotional issues. The hook starts out as an almost unnoticed gentle left feint in the first act, shifts to a gentle right jab in the second, and grows from there to ultimately become a crushing hook that lands as a solid knockout blow.
Key to everything is Natalie Te Rehua (Te Ao O Hinepehinga), an aspiring dancer, who has inherited a serious heart condition. Natalie partners with haka queen Kruze Tangira (Tāwhai Pātai) intent on winning a $10,000 prize and together they chuckout the tried and true and devise a never-before-seen dance form – haka-fusion.
Belz uses Natalie’s potentially life-threatening physical issue to morph into addressing a whole range of societal and emotional issues and Hyperspace suddenly becomes more interesting, more serious and more enjoyable on a completely different level. This is what Belz’s play is ultimately about.
Natalie’s bestie Hiona (Mele Toli) provides her with some assured support and advice on occasions and her brother Sonny Te Rehua (Kauri Williams) some musical accompaniment before eventually securing Hiona’s hand in a hilarious proposal scene.
However, the firm hand of director Tainui Tukiwaho is everywhere in this production. He underscore’s the humour in Belz’s script and makes the most of the many idiomatic references before ensuring that it is about much more than mere comedy. Or music. Or dance for that matter. It is about whanau, care, love, responsibility and actualisation. In some ways it might even be likened to a coming of age play for gen-X.
His universally strong cast can both sing and dance. Standouts for me included Edward Clendon as a ganglingly awkward Jason and Pamela Sidhu as the contortionistic Crystal.
But it is the overall choreography of Jack Gray that both establishes and goes a long way towards sustaining Hyperspace. Jack has certainly ‘dusted off his old aerobic shoes’. Haka-fusion indeed!
Sure Natalie and Kruze don’t win the dance comp, and Kapa and Sonny’s wedding rather cutely rounds things out in a well-developed stage setting, but this work is about a whole lot of other stuff that ultimately opens windows to issues that have a contemporary relevance.
Without some clear pointers to cultural idiosyncrasy, this play is probably too parochial for international audiences but it’s not meant to be. So congratulations to ATC and Te Pou on an interesting and well-crafted collaboration for local consumption.
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra joins with Aotearoa New Zealand’s Muslim communities and acclaimed international artists to present a unique concert experience at the Auckland Arts Festival in March.
“Beyond Words” is a special collaboration to promote unity and peace through music and to honour the lives lost and changed forever in Ōtautahi Christchurch on 15 March 2019.
Conducted by Fawzi Haimor featuring powerful Moroccan vocalist OUM and Cypriot/Greek oud virtuoso Kyriakos Tapakis, the NZSO performs the New Zealand premieres of works from American Valerie Coleman, Iranian Reza Vali, Estonian Arvo Pärt and the world premiere of a new work from renowned Aotearoa New Zealand composer John Psathas.
Psathas’ Ahlan wa Sahlan, composed in collaboration with OUM and Tapakis, uses the Arabic welcome to let people know they are in a place where they belong. Finding inspiration in a quote promoting peace, love and forgiveness from terror attack survivor Farid Ahmed’s memoir Husna’s Story, Psathas, OUM and Tapakis have fused together musical styles from Eastern and Western cultures in Ahlan wa Sahlan.
Psathas has established an international profile and receives regular commissions from organisations in New Zealand and overseas including fanfares and other music at the opening and closing ceremonies of the Athens Olympics.
This work has been created with guidance from The Central Iqra Trust and communities across Aotearoa New Zealand.
Vali combines Western orchestration with Persian style for the New Zealand premiere of Funèbre. Coleman’s Umoja, Swahili for ‘unity’, was the first work by a living African American woman premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Pärt’s Silouan’s Song is a powerfully spiritual and meditative work.
Vocalist Abdelilah Rharrabti, vocalist and daf musician Esmail Fathi, and saz player Liam Oliver from Ōtautahi Christchurch’s Simurgh Music School, also join the Orchestra to perform traditional music of the Middle East.
“It is not often one has the opportunity to offer a message of solidarity, love, and compassion through one’s artistic work,” says Psathas.
“This is a rare gift from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and I am even more fortunate to be able to share this creative journey with two fellow artists: OUM and one of Greece’s most celebrated oud performers, Kyriakos Tapakis. Together we are creating a musical message of welcoming – Ahlan wa Sahlan – a greeting used to tell someone that they’re where they belong, that they’re a part of this place and they are welcome here. It’s a way of saying ‘You’re with your people’.”
Alongside the concerts are a series of free community engagement events in Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland in collaboration with Muslim communities and Unity Week, the official commemoration to be held from 15 March.
In each city there will be a community panel discussion with Beyond Words artists about the project. In Christchurch the events include a workshop by the Simurgh Music School, where the public can experience traditional instruments from the Middle East and Islamic world, a spoken word workshop and Share Kai Share Culture, run by InCommon and Mahia te Aroha, both founded in Christchurch in response to 15 March 2019.
In Auckland Town Hall a special calligraphy exhibition will feature works created by distinguished calligraphy artist Janna Ezat. In the Islamic world, Arabic calligraphy is both an art form and an expression of devotion, identity, and cultural heritage. The exhibition includes a powerful piece dedicated to Janna’s son Hussein Al-Umari, commemorating his bravery, and honouring his legacy in the aftermath of the tragic attack.
Beyond Word also performed in Wellington in association with the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts (March 9) and at Christchurch (March 7).
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Pablo Picasso, Mère aux enfants à l’orange (Mother and children with an orange), 1951, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023
The Robertson Gift: Paths through Modernity
Auckland Art Gallery
February 9 – February 2026
Opening at the Auckland Art Gallery on 9 February and running for two years will be the exhibition “The Robertson Gift: Paths through Modernity” comprising fifteen major artworks valued in excess of $250million. The works are a long-promised gift from the collection of New York philanthropists Julian (1932– 2022) and Josie Robertson (1943–2010).
The collection features influential modern European artists, including Pierre Bonnard, Georges Braque, Paul Cezanne, Salvador Dalí, André Derain, Henri Fantin-Latour, Paul Gauguin, Fernand Léger, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian and Pablo Picasso.
Director of Auckland Art Gallery, Kirsten Lacy says that the Gallery could not realise such a selection of artworks without Julian and Josie’s vision.
“Patronage of this scale is unprecedented, and the collection of modern masterpieces is unique. The Robertson’s gift is unquestionably the most transformative bequest of international art to the country in the past century,” says Lacy.
The couple divided their lives between New York and Aotearoa New Zealand ever since their first visit to Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland in 1978–1979. The Robertson’s extraordinary gift acknowledges the lasting connections the couple formed with Aotearoa New Zealand and their passion for modern art. Robertson was an investor and developer in the US and New Zealand. He owned three lodges including Kauri Cliffs Lodge and several wineries. He was also one of the few non-New Zealanders to receive a knighthood.
Beginning with post-Impressionist works of the late 19th century and ending with a monumental colour-field painting from the 1960s, the exhibition takes visitors on a journey through the major art movements of the modern era, including Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism, and post-war abstraction.
Henri Matisse, Espagnole (buste). (The Spanish Woman), 1922. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023
Included in the 23 mainly works on paper by Matisse is “Espagnole (buste) [The Spanish Woman]” painted in 1922. The work was purchased at Sotheby’s in 2007 for between USD 12,000,000 – 16,000,000 .
The auction house described the work as one of the finest portraits from Matisse’s Nice period of the 1920s, when his skills as a colourist were at their most expressive. This is one of his more intimate compositions that allows for a close engagement with the young model, who is dressed in the exotic costume of a Spanish women. Matisse’s best pictures of this period focused on light-filled, and often profusely decorated interiors, with seductive models.
The work is very similar to “Espagnole: Harmonie en bleu (Spanish Woman: Harmony in Blue)” of the same period which is in the collection of the MET in New York.
André Derain, Paysage à l’Estaque (Estaque Landscape), 1906, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023
Derain’s “Estaque Landscape” of 1906 was painted when the artist and Henri Matisse, spent the transformative summer of 1905 in Collioure in the south of France. Together, they painted similar views of the coastal village, encouraging one another to adopt brighter colours, bolder brushstrokes, and flatter compositions in their depictions of the surrounding landscape. This style of painting, became known as Fauvism
A recent Christies Auction featured a similar work which sold for USD $5,580,000
Georges Braque, Le Guéridon (Vase Gris et Palette). Pedestal table (Grey vase and palette), 1938, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023
Georges Braque, said of works such as “Le Guéridon (Vase Gris et Palette). Pedestal table (Grey vase and palette)”, “No object can be tied down to any one sort of reality. Everything, I realized, is subject to metamorphosis; everything changes according to the circumstances. So when you ask me whether a particular form in one of my paintings depicts a woman’s head, a fish, a vase, a bird, or all four at once, I can’t give you a categorical answer, for this ‘metamorphic’ confusion is fundamental to what I am out to express”
Fernand Léger, Les Pistons (The Pistons), 1918, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023
Fernand Léger’s, Les Pistons (The Pistons), of 1918, is from a series which references contemporary urban life and features many abstract shapes including mechanical, tubular forms, discs, vertical, horizontal and diagonal bands of colour as well as other less clearly definable shapes that coexist with glimpses of modern urban architecture and the anonymous citizens who animate it.
Salvador Dalí, Instrument masochiste (Masochistic Instrument), circa 1934, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023
Salvador Dalí’s, “Instrument masochiste (Masochistic Instrument)’ shows a nude woman shedding a part of her skin in the form of a violin. The violin is the protagonist and the woman is an antagonist in the painting. Symbolically, it identifies Dali’s strong resistance towards music. The bow hitting the cypress tree adds his imagination of equating music with mortality and despair. It also represents Dali’s impotence obsession and overall neurosis. The cypress trees reminded him of the Pitchot estate, where he would spend long, happy hours in erotic daydreams.
Another of the works from this series sold recently 2019 for GBP 611,250
Paul Gauguin, Cow in Meadow, Rouen, 1884, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023
Paul Gauguin’s “Cow in meadow Rouen” is part of a group of interrelated paintings, where he focused his attention on rural views such as a stream where cows came to water, selecting a different vantage point for each composition Three or four canvases from this experimental group were among the nineteen paintings that Gauguin showed at the eighth and final Impressionist Exhibition in 1886.
A similar work from the period sold in 2019 for USD 783,750
Pablo Picasso, Femme à la résille (Woman in a hairnet), 1938, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, gift of Julian and Josie Robertson through the Auckland Art Gallery Foundation, 2023
Pablo Picasso painted “Femme à la résille (Woman in a hairnet)” in 1938, at the height of his relationship with the photographer Dora Maar
A similar work from the series but twice the size of the Robertson work sold at Christies in 2015 for USD67million.
The other Pablo Picasso in the collection, his “Mere Aux Enfants A L’Orange” was sold at Sotheby’s November 2002. for USD 3,639,500
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New Zealand Arts Review 