Tag: books

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Peter Cleverly: The artist revealed

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Peter Cleverly: Between Transience and Eternity

Alistair Fox

Quentin Wilson Publishing

RRP $60

Reviewed by  John Daly-Peoples

Peter Cleverly has rarely shown his work in Auckland galleries apart from a few times the early 1990’s, so for many his work is unknown apart from images in publications.

However, a new book, “Peter Cleverly: Between Transience and Eternity” by Alistair Fox will correct this.

The heavily illustrated book traces the artists career from the 1980’s to the present with images of his work across more than four decades.

These four decades of art practice have seen him developing a personal style partly influenced by other New Zealand artists as well as his personal, response to his environment –  physical, social and political.

His early work was predominantly figurative but from the 1990’s these were replaced with landscapes, often with texts and then. more recently the  inclusion of figurative elements again.

His work, particularly early on was influenced in different ways by Toss Woollaston, and McCahon.

McCahon probably influenced his palette and his use of text but he may have also gained an understanding of McCahon’s approach. Unlike many artists influenced by McCahon he referenced A C Cotton’s book “Geomorphology” which was a prime source for both artists and Cleverly uses Cottons illustrations and shapes. He also used objects such as the pitcher as symbols in his work.

Other influences include New Zealand artists Bill Sutton and Tony Fomison while the importance of several international artists  such as George Baselitz, Mimmo Paladino and David Salle and appears to  have adapted their thinking about art.

His early landscapes owe much to McCahon shapes in “Six Days in Nelson and Canterbury while interiors such as “Still life kitchen Oamaru” are Post Impressionist distilled though Woollaston.

Peter Cleverly, All twenty-nine

His figurative work often dwells on mortality and death. “All Twenty-nine” his response to the death of 29 miners at Pike River. Here and in many other works the artist has a personal and visceral approach to his subject.

This is also seen in “Couriers” featuring two distorted hanging figures – is reaction to the incarceration of drug couriers Lorraine and Aaron Cohen. Often his figures are something  between flayed corpses and angels.

Peter Cleverly, Seadog

Cleverly has developed his own distinctive iconography including a dog shape/face which serves a range of emotional and symbolic purposes as in “Seadog”. 

The book is a very readable account of the artists varied life which has had an impact on the way he sees the world and the influences on his practice as well as an understanding of the artists thoughts and motivations.

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Auckland Philharmonia’s Enigma

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Enigma

Auckland Philharmonia

Auckland Town Hall

March 27

Conductor Karl-Heinz Steffens

Grieg, Norwegian Dances
James MacMillan, Concerto for Orchestra ‘Ghosts’ (NZ premiere)
Elgar, Enigma Variations

On the programme for the Auckland Philharmonia’ s “Enigma” concert was a newly commissioned  work by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. His “Concerto for Orchestra” was subtitled “Ghosts” and had an enigmatic quality to it.

As the composer says of the work, “The music seems to be haunted by other, earlier musical spirits and memories,” These musical memories which creep into the composition can be seen in the reference to Beethoven’s “Ghost”  trio along with other musical references – Debussy, Scottish traditional music and an eastern musical hymn.

These musical references emerge from the composition like ghostly figures, sometimes gradually appearing, sometimes unexpectedly while some of the themes overlap.  The music is full of juxtapositions and surprises as various instruments and combinations of instruments introduce new themes and spiritedly amplify them.

The lively spirits of the opening were created by dramatic percussion and piercing brass which led to a great chattering of sounds with some eerie conversations between the strings and brass.

Throughout the work there is a sense of the instruments floating around, trying to discover and capture themes which have been lost. This floating, colliding and capturing of elusive themes creates a tension within the piece. The dramatic flourishes of percussion, the sinuous sounds of the strings as well as some jazzy sequences all add to the works restlessness and urgency.

The sounds all helped create a dreamscape of remembered, and reimagined sounds and like some ghostly figures were continually slipping and finally the wispy sounds disappear.

The piece recalls the Shakespeare line from the Tempest

The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices

Many of the same musical ideas appear in Elgars “Enigma Variations” where various musical instruments are used to convey impression of people that were close to the composer. The one theme that is probably never heard is the one that represents the composer himself. The variations feature the composer’s own ideas about his friends and close contacts conveying their physical, psychological and spiritual personalities.

The variations with their delightful impressions include variation I said to be of his wife, has a wistful quality and  an anthem overflowing with joy but also with s hint of sadness, Variation IX Nimrod with its heavenly sounds and the violas solo in Variation VI – Ysobel

Conductor Karl-Heinz Steffens was able to ensure that each of the portraits was interpreted with the appropriate mood, pace and colour and he seemed to relish both the music and the narratives of the work and his sharp, sensitive gestures had him performing like some grand puppet master manipulating the  dozen characters of Elgar’s world.

The opening work on the programme was Grieg’s “Norwegian Dances” and Steffens was able to lead the orchestra through the spirited dances with its changing portraits of the people, the history  and landscape effortlessly, taking the orchestra from lethargic to happy and ebullient.

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Animal: The great little show in the farmyard

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Animal

Cirque Alfonse

Q Theatre

March 19 – 23

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

It was not much of an act, chucking an egg in the air, have it land on your back and keep it there while you jiggle around. Anyone could do it , except one of the performers in the Quebec based group “Animal” had to have three goes at it. One of the eggs splatting on his back and head and two more landing on the stage. He got more applause for the broken eggs than did his two fellow perfomers for their safely caught eggs.

It’s always great to see performers achieving pulling off acts , but it’s more amusing when they fail – fail, recover and get on with the show. It often reveals the skill and dexterity of the performer and shows up our own lack of skill. In another of their acts one of the females spins a bucket full of seeds which is supposed to keep the seeds inside  . She misjudges and we get a stage strewn with seeds and she doesn’t miss a beat – it almost seems as if she meant that to happen. I think the little children may have learned one of their basic science lessons about centripetal force.

Theres a lot of basic science in” Animal” along with basic acrobatics as the group perform basic balancing, juggling and springboard work. They take the audience on a slightly surreal  journey through their weird farm of outlandish animal  and wacky activities – tossing pitch forks, balancing on milk churns, riding bucking cows.

As well as being skilled acrobats and contortionists the group are also skilled musicians playing guitar, trumpets, a range of percussion instruments, flute and keyboard – and they can sing too, belting out their own French compositions which are probably very witty if you are up on your French.

The Canadian Cirque Du Soliel group has shown us  how to put on a high-powered performance with cool moves and dazzling costumes but “Animal” is more down to earth, using all the contraptions from the farm, – wheelbarrows. milk churns and  hay forks, along with a jumble of clothes and hats which they must have found around the barn. Their routines are all clever and entertaining, bringing together circus, song, dance and theatre with some  quirky live music.

It may be designed for children but it has a universal appeal  with their displays of strength  agility and balance in their boutique version of the grander Cirque displays.

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HEDY! The Life & Inventions of Hedy Lamar

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

HEDY! The Life & Inventions of Hedy Lamar

Written and performed by Heather Massie

Q Theatre

March 13- 16

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

While she never got an Oscar, Hedy Lamarr was considered the most beautiful woman in the world and was one of the great movie stars of the mid twentieth century. She starred in many films including “Samsom and Delilah and the Czech film “Ecstasy” which featured a controversial orgasm scene which was banned in many countries.

She was divorced six times, making her one of the most divorced women of the twentieth century, a distinction beaten only by Elizabeth Taylor with seven.

But, in many ways, her greatest distinction was her invention (along with George Antheil} of  a “Secret Communication System,” which was a radio-guided device with anti-jamming frequencies which would have had the capacity to interfere with torpedo guidance systems during WWI. The US Navy declined to make use of it.

This device is a component of present-day satellite technology and cellular phone technology.

Her work as an inventor was eventually recognized in 1997 with the Sixth Annual Pioneer Award bestowed on her by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

These are some of the highlights of her career which were revealed in Heather Massie’s one-woman autobiographical show, “Hedy Lamarr”.

Lamarr reminisces about her life, her father, her time in Vienna and later her career in Hollywood. There are her relationships with the various men in her life – an armaments producer, a count, Louis B Meyer and various director and actors.

Many of them were presented by Heather Massie using a of range voices to create to give depth to her performance, although she gave most of the men pretty much the same clichéd accent. Her account of Jimmy Stewart, however, was a delightfully, breathless portrait of the actor.

The various events and activities referred to showed the range of Lamarr’s interests and encounters with her quotes indicating a shrewd mind and a keen observer of life.

Massie managed to turn Lamarr into a remarkable complicated but simple figure who seems to know a lot about life, men and the workings of the world as well as making shrewd observation about her life and her inventions.

However, Massie galloped through her “tutorial” about her guidance system with not much time to appreciate just how important the invention could have been to the war effort.

Massie’s presentation has Lamarr engage the various people in her life over the phone or in having on stage conversations so effectively that in retrospect it seems they were with there on stage.

She also engaged with the audience as a whole and in many cases with individual audience members, a technique which worked as a means of creating Lamarr as well as providing a classy example of how to create a character.

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You are Here: linking language, memories and landscape

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

You Are Here

Whiti Hereaka and Peata Larkin

Massey University Press

RRP $45.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Most stories have a beginning, a middle  and an end. Most stories have a central idea, a kernel from which the tale expands like a sinuous river which follows a plot or a life. Other books can have a very different structure as with the new book “You Are Here”.

“You Are Here” which is the  sixth book in the “kōrero series”, edited by Lloyd Jones, features Jann Medlicott Acorn Fiction Prize winner Whiti Hereaka and artist Peata Larkin, cousins who share the same whakapapa. in a collaboration. Unlike the previous stories in the collection Larkin’s images are not merely illustrations of the text but rather complementary representations of similar ideas.

Here the story line is cyclical, expanding and contracting. Like James Joyce’s  “Finnegans Wake” the work begins and ends at the same point but with an elaborate structure in between  

The poem  starts with the line “You are here” and ends with the line – “Return to where you belong”, seemingly following the mathematical notions of the Fibonacci number sequence.

In tracing out the narrative the  narrator recalls their youth and their experiences of life. Threaded through this personal journey are images of water and the stones of a lake as well as  images of birds and journeys. like the  symbolic use of the Piwakawaka by Colin McCahon.

Language, memories and landscape are seen as linked in the development of the narrator, their memories of school and the shaping of the person through language and experiences. the physical and the metaphorically linked in this journey.

Parallel to Hereaka’s storyline are Peata Larkin’s multi-layered visual images in which ideas inherent in the structure of the story are the linked to her exploration of the DNA structure as well as images of Māori design. Drawings of tāniko and whakairo on gridded shapes are linked to European notions of embroidery and mathematical structures.

Peata Larkin says of the work “Working on this project has been very special to me …Being cut from the same cloth enables the threads of the fabric to shine through and hopefully we achieved that.

Hereaka says. ‘It is my hope that by the time you have walked that path that you are now a different reader and will read those words in a new way,’

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A Mixtape for Maladies:   Music and  Memories of a War

Ravikanth Gurunathan (Vishwanathan), Tiahli Martyn (Subbalaxmi), Ahilan Karunaharan (Rajan), Gemma-Jayde Naidoo (Sangeetha – past) Image – Andi Crown

A Mixtape for Maladies 

By Ahilan Karunaharan 

Director, Jane Yonge  

Auckland Theatre Company  

Until March 23

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

The Sri Lankan Civil War of the latter part of the 20th century provides the backdrop for Ahklan Karunaharan’s “A Mixtape for Maladies” which explores the lives of a Tamil family, who are caught up in the conflict, some of whom are killed or immigrate to New Zealand.

The play explores the reality of living in a different time and culture in a period of tension and transition and we identify and sympathize with the family’s trials of living through a war.

I was jolted back to another reality at the end of the show however. My Uber driver looked South Asian, so I mentioned about the show and how it combined politics and family. He was from Sri Lanka and acknowledged the tragedy of the war and its impact on the country. But his experience was very different from the family I had just witnessed on stage as he had been an air force pilot during the war contributing to the death and destruction, providing an alternative history of the period  

One of the few things that Sangeetha (Ambicka G.K.R.) one of the daughters has brought to New Zealand was a tape recording of songs she loved growing up. Her New Zealand born son, Deepan (Shaan Kesha) finds the tape and plays the songs during his online podcast which trigger personal and political memories for her. 

Through the course of the play Deepan plays these songs and Sangeetha remembers elements of the family’s life – hearing about the war, her and her sister hanging around the store where Anton (Bala Murali) works because he plays all the latest local and international songs as well as songs from the movies. 

Shaan Kesha (Deepan), Ambika (Sangeetha – present) Image Andi Crown

While some of the songs are played on the tape recorder others are sung by various members of the cast, accompanied by a duo (Ben Fernandez and Seyorn Arunagirinathan) playing a variety of instruments – keyboard, Carnatic violin and flute. Ahilan Karunaharan (Rajan), and Bala Murali give particularly fine vocal performances while Tiahli Martyn’s (Subbalaxmi) display of Tamil dance was skillful. These vocal and dance  performances had many of the Tamil audience singing and swaying along to the music.

Among the tunes were Doris Day singing” Que Sera Sera”. “La Bamba” and some Tamil songs. These songs act as a cultural glue which holds the family together but also reminds us that these songs had universal appeal listened to by Sri Lankans as well as New Zealanders at the time.

The play is a mixture of social history, family exploration, cabaret and personal journey with music playing a central role in the play as well as the instruments the family would have listened to the songs on – an old turntable, a hi-fi player and the tape recorder.

The simple set features Dareen and Sangeetha in his podcast studio on one side and musicians on the other, flanking the family home and Anton’s general store.

The exploration by Dareen is initially an innocent enquiry into his mother’s music choices but becomes a journey into Sri Lanka’s history as well as triggering memories of his mothers and her family’s past and the impact of the war on their lives.

To subscribe or follow New Zealand Arts Review site – www.nzartsreview.org.

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BLACK GRACE TURNS 30

John Daly-Peoples

John Daly-Peoples

‘THIS IS NOT A RETROSPECTIVE’

Auckland Town Hall

Saturday March 22,  7.30

Neil Ieremia is one of Aotearoa’s most astonishing and prolific home-based creatives. His ever-growing body of work has easily and unselfconsciously graced stages in many parts of the world and he is rapidly becoming a one-man export machine. In part this is because of his perfectionism that never forgets the past, stands firmly rooted in the present and yet finds time to seriously address the future – sometimes simultaneously.

His works combine different personal histories, different body shapes and abilities, and different musical and dance backgrounds.

May of his works have a strong musical underpinning that ranges from pop to hip hop, traditional to church, coupled with soundscapes that underscore the everyday concerns of young people today. It leaps from recollections of things past to things that might have been and things that are very much of the present, uses the simplest of props and creates some beautiful moments.

His latest work celebrates the company’s 30th year milestone with ‘THIS IS NOT A RETROSPECTIVE’, the ultimate interactive dance party at the Auckland Town Hall, Saturday March 22

Joining Blackl Grace will be CHE FU and THA FEELSTYLE along with the many amazing friends of Black Grace already down to party including; DJ Manuel Bundy, drag queen diva Buckwheat and the NZ Trio, working alongside a stellar production team, with Artistic Direction by Neil Ieremia, ONZM, sound designer Faiumu Matthew Salapu aka Anonymouz, internationally respected NYC-based lighting designer JAX Messenger, along with the incredible Black Grace Dancers.

But the fun doesn’t stop there, Black Grace has a number of special events planned throughout their birthday year. To be in the know join them at blackgrace.co.nz

Main event 1hr 10min, followed by a party which  will continue after main event until late

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Ray Ching: the huia & our tears

reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Ray Ching

the huia & our tears

ARTIS Gallery

RRP $80.00

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

With his latest book “the huia & our tears” Ray Ching has shown once again that he is not just a great painter, he is also a clever storyteller and an expert ornithologist.

The large format book like all his previous publications is impressive with full colour reproduction, Illustrations spread over two pages, great typography and well researched text. It adds greatly to our understanding and appreciation of the huia which disappeared in the early years of the twentieth century.

The book is a remarkable collection of memories, observations, research and reflections on the huia and its place in New Zealand ornithological and national history.

Ching has had an interest bordering on obsession with the huia from an early age noting that he had always had the bird with him, connected by its image on the old New Zealand sixpence.

Included in the book are the artist’s encounters with taxidermists, ornithologists, writers artists and major figures in New Zealand’s history who provide fascinating insights into the history of the huia.

The Kite and the huia (detail)

In many of his previous books notably his Aesop’s Kiwi Fables  he has included moral tales featuring figures from the animal kingdom. In this  book he has included several examples of these including  “The huia and our tears as well as “The kite and the huia”

He includes early reports of the huia by Charles Heaphy, Edward Jerningham Wakefield and Ernest Dieffenbach as well as Walter Buller’s description of the huia where he wrote:

“The Huia never leaves the shade of the forest. It moves along the ground, or from tree to tree, with surprising celerity by a series of bounds or jumps. In its flight it never rises, like other birds, above the tree tops”.

There are a number of other mentions about the bird such as the poem “The Huia” included in Eileen Duggan’ s 1929 publication “New Zealand Bird Songs”  The final verse of this poem reads:

Where is it now that once was high?

Where is it now, where is its wing?

Where is the Prince of the leaves and sky?

Where is the King?

Ching notes that many of the illustrations of the huia are from examples held in museums but only few from recently killed birds which accounts for the lack of dramatic colouring as the plumage has faded.

Ray Ching, Huia (detail)

In this respect he notes that the work of Keulemans who produced the illustrations for Walter Bullers books on New Zealand birds may be the most accurate as he normally received his birds sent by Buller to Europe within a few weeks of their death.

There is a series of portraits of  Māori by Lindauer and Goldie in which the sitters have worn huia feathers in their hair with Ching referencing the use of the bird’s feathers by high-ranking Māori. Included in these portraits are images Pane Watene (Ngati Maru) and Tawhiao Matutaera Te Wherewhere (Ngāti Mahuta).

Gottfried Lindauer, Pane Watene (Ngati Maru)

As well as Chings account of his sixty-year interest in the huia he includes another important text.

The now out of print publication “The Book of the Huia” written by W.J. Phillipps and published in 1963 is reproduced in full providing additional information . In it the author included conversations and correspondence of early settlers and the place of the huia in the lives of Māori.

He also provides details of the bird’s life from birth through its use as a food and its feathers for decoration both for Māori and later Europeans and its wholesale slaughter in the late nineteenth century and inclusion in museums across the globe.

Ching also includes  details of all the huia held in the many New Zealand locations as well as the UK, America Germany

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Matilda the Musical: Fun to Go

Review by Malcolm Calder

Revolting children in Matilda the Musical

Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical

Book Dennis Kelly

Music and Lyrics Tim Minchin

North Shore Music Theatre and Amici Trust

Co-directors Grant Meese and Hamish Mouat

Musical Director Jack Barnard

Bruce Mason Theatre

Until 13 October 2024

Review by Malcolm Calder

 ‘My mummy says I’m a miracle,’ lisps a pampered early-maturer near the top of this deliciously-dark family show.  It is echoed by her diverse classmates and quickly becomes their mantra because, as they well know, even if you’re little you certainly can do a lot.

And they do.  In fact, there are sometimes so many little people doing things in this Matilda, one can readily understand why two directors are occasionally required.  Which might suggest that the principals, the subprincipals, the alternating Maggots, Worms and childrens’ choruses could easily get tangled up a bit.  Not on your life.  They flow as one.  And that is a credit Grant Meese, Hamish Mouat and those who have supported them.  The energy levels never flag and I came out feeling just a tad breathless.

Based on the splendidly grotesque Roald Dahl novel from 1988, and turned over to Tim Minchin and Dennis Kelly prior to its original West End opening in 2010, the music and the songs quickly become owned by the children, the story develops a life of its own and the whole thing becomes a fun-filled romp driven largely by Minchin’s nonsensically-wondrous lyrics as by Roald Dahl’s original.

It tells a tale of the collective power of children and how they address the perceived wrongs of the world they inhabit.  Their ringleader is one Matilda Wormwood – a young girl with the gift of telekinesis. She loves reading, has an unsupportive and cringe-worthy family and ends up at a school run by the terrible Miss Trunchbull.  But, with the help of teacher Miss Honey and town librarian Mrs Phelps, she and the other children overcome all the odds and triumph.  Of course they do.

In the process the character of Matilda’s awful parents are stripped bare; Mrs Trunchball,the butch, granite-faced principal who used to be an Olympic hammer thrower and unleashed by George Keenan-Davies is effectively neutered; the sweet natured Miss Honey – that teacher we all love to love – provides a neat balance that demonstrates not all grownups are nasty. 

As for the children themselves, they are irresistible, stomping and skipping through some marvellous choreography through both this show and through life, demonstrating that growing up is a lifelong endeavour. For kids, yes, but also for the children that we all remain at heart, this is wise, wicked, glorious fun.  Both chocolate cake and the hammer throw will never be the same again.

Of special note is the choreography of Hamish Mouat who manages to sustain multiple overlapping conversations yet never loses sight of a group statement.

Falling neatly into the school holidays, the timing of his show is impeccable.  It is pure, top-end family fare.

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ATC’s Girls and Boys: comic, dramatic, unexpected and gut wrenching.

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Beatriz Romilly

Girls & Boys by Dennis Kelly

Directed by Eleanor Bishop

Auckland Theatre Company

ASB Waterfront  Theatre

Until September 22

Reviewed by John Daly-Peoples

Boys & Girls starts of as a very simple play with a clear narrative, some well-honed quips and some nicely sketched characters. All this is deftly presented by Beatriz Romilly as the sole unnamed central character who we meet standing in a queue at Naples airport where she tells of her misspent youth and her  as drunk / druggy / slaggy phase imbibing  drinks, drugs and a bit of cocaine. She gives us her youthful world-weary evaluation of a few European hot spots – Paris is a dump – Leeds with wider streets. Italians are fucked up but great.

Its also in this queue she meets her husband who endears himself to her by putting two wanna-be models in their place.  He is something of an entrepreneur, buying up old French and Italian furniture to sell in the UK.

Then its fast forward to her and the  children, who do have names – Leanne and Danny. And she gets a new job. She gets to be a PA in a TV company. She is good at her job, rises through the ranks to the point she is getting Baftas.

The first half of the play is pretty bright, the sex is terrific, the children predictable, she manages to thwart a potential rival, it’s a good life.

The latter part of the play is a bit darker. His business starts to falter, she suspects another woman, they are drifting apart. Its at this point she addresses the audience, as she has done a few times before _ “I am if course, just giving you one side”. While she doesn’t tell us what the other side is she comes to the realisation that he is jealous of her rising star while his is waning. The conclusion is devastating and echoes some of the remarks she makes earlier in the play about male violence and she muses in her final lines about the way the world has been made for men should be to stop men.

As well as giving life lessons to the children the woman also imparts them to the audience in her complex role of mother, shrink and life coach.

In charting the trajectory of her marriage she has to confront the puzzle of the man she loves and Romilly is able to convey her changing emotional states from the early,  witty observation to the visceral responeses she has to the final  tragedy. Romilly also manages to transform the physical nature of the woman herself from a statuesque figure at the beginning to a crumpled form at the conclusion.

Romilly gives a brilliantly textured performance as she builds a portrait of the woman, transitioning from her early  phase of her life to maturity with some clever vignettes as she takes on the voices of  other characters.

The simple set designed by Tracy Grant Lord was a masterpiece of design – at times just a small flat wall, then a doorway, then a dark box -and  was able  to change the dynamins of the action while the lighting of Filament 11 added to the atmosphere.

The soundscape created by Te Aihe Butler with its sounds of the outside world as well the music of Victoria Kelly all helped create intense  moods which were  generally, extremely effective but occasionally it becomes unnecessarily obvious and masked the dialogue.

The monologue at close to two hours is a remarkable display of acting – subtle, comic, dramatic, unexpected and gut wrenching.

The play is acutely relevant in telling of the tragedy of lives and families ripped apart by male violence and its debilitating aftereffects on individuals and society.

To subscribe or follow New Zealand Arts Review site – www.nzartsreview.org.

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