Calendar / Diary

Events worth noting around the country.

Events worth noting around the country. Words: Ann Warnock

Dancing Delights

Until 14 August, Museum of Wellington City & Sea

Examine the capital city’s dance scene from World War I to the present day through the creative lenses of early-20th-century Wellington dance teacher Nesta Ngoi Carwell-Cooke and fashion designer Karen Walker. Historic photos, performance programmes and scrapbooks of 1920s’ stage and screen stars from Nesta’s personal collection are juxtaposed with life-sized images of Karen’s designs for the Royal New Zealand Ballet’s Stravinsky Triple Bill – Scènes de Ballet. A design-your-own costume table with figure templates based on Nesta’s sketches plus weekend dance and musical treats are part of the action.
Phone (04) 472 8904 

Introduction to the Treaty of Waitangi

12 and 14 July, 9am to 1pm, Victoria University of Wellington

What was the Treaty intended to achieve in 1840? What is Maori customary law? What are the debates surrounding the Treaty? Examine key historical events from a Maori perspective, grow your understanding and gain tools for applying Treaty principles in your workplace.
Peter Adds, Head of Victoria University’s School of Maori Studies, leads those with little or no understanding of the Treaty through the political, economic and social issues intrinsic in this nation’s paramount piece of legislation.
Phone (04) 463 6556, www.victoria.ac.nz/profdevpreservation. 

Events worth noting around the country. Words: Ann Warnock

Mary Stuart

5 to 28 May, Maidment Theatre, Auckland

A brilliantly imagined meeting between Mary, Queen of Scots, focus of simmering Catholic dissent, and her cousin Elizabeth, Queen of England, who has imprisoned her. Isolated by their duplicitous male courtiers, the women collide headlong against a thrilling background of political intrigue, plot and counter-plot. The play was first performed in German in 1800; this is a contemporary translation delivered to the stage by the crème de la crème of Kiwi actors including Robyn Malcolm, George Henare and Elizabeth Hawthorne.
Phone (09) 309 3395, www.atc.co.nz

Events worth noting around the country. Words: Ann Warnock

Crown Lynn: Crockery of Distinction

To 25 April, City Gallery, Wellington

It graced family dinner-tables up and down Aotearoa in the 1950s and ’60s, is now treasured by troupes of collectors and fetches some fancy prices. So where does Crown Lynn crockery fit in our nation’s collective aesthetic conscience? This exhibition – the largest collection of Crown Lynn objects ever showcased in a public gallery – seeks the answer. It pulls together the diverse collections of Crown Lynn’s most dedicated followers and includes wares from the Portage Ceramics Trust which cares for more than 6000 pieces, many sourced from the company’s factory in New Lynn after its closure in 1989.

Phone (04) 801 3021, www.citygallery.org.nz

Events worth noting around the country

headland Sculpture on the Gulf

28 January to 20 February, Waiheke Island, Auckland

A two-kilometre coastal walkway on Waiheke Island’s headland is centre stage for New Zealand’s leading sculptural installation. Works by 38 artists, from the big names to emerging sculptors, have been selected for the fifth biennial event which seeks to propel art outside the traditional perimeters of gallery space. The works resound in a glorious natural landscape.

Phone (09) 372 9894, www.sculptureonthegulf.co.nz

The Marlborough Wine Festival

12 February, Brancott Estate, Blenheim

New Zealand’s longest-running wine festival, now in its 28th year, dishes up a range of wine experiences at one of the region’s oldest vineyards. Included are tutorials with Marlborough’s key winemakers and viticulturists, palate-tickling food, wine-matching competitions, a feast of local gourmet produce and Fashion in the Vines. To cap off the festivities there is a line-up of entertainment from the Kiwi music scene.

Phone (03) 577 9299, www.wine-marlborough-festival.co.nz

Auckland Seafood Festival

29 to 31 January, Viaduct Harbour

Events worth noting around the country

Words: Ann Warnock

Artrageous

5 to 19 November, Quay School of Fine Arts, Whanganui

A celebration of cutting-edge creativity, Whanganui UCOL’s graduating students in fine arts, fashion, computer graphic design and glass showcase their artistic verve in a series of exhibitions and a one-off fashion event, Frock Up and Enjoy. Encompassing painting, printmaking, photography, design, sculpture and glass, the large-scale show of works is staged at the Creative Schools’ campus in Whanganui’s historic warehouse
district.

Phone 0800 468 265, www.ucol.ac.nz

Spirits in Stone

4 November to 30 January 2011, Birdwoods Gallery, Havelock North

The contemporary artistic spirit of Africa
is encapsulated in an outdoor installation
of more than 40 Shona stone sculptures selected by Birdwoods Gallery owner Louise Stobart, whose farming family was forced to flee Zimbabwe in 2003. Her annual trips home to urban and rural art communities have allowed her to foster a six-year relationship with those artists represented. The sculptors quarry the raw stone and use rudimentary tools to create works of great beauty and resonance.

Phone (06) 877 1395, www.birdwoodsgallery.co.nz

Events worth noting around the country

Words: Ann Warnock

Material Girls

7 to 30 May, Statements Gallery, Napier

Five Whanganui glass artists collaborate on an exhibition comprising new works, diversity and a dash of the comic. This is a return exhibition for Karen Ellett, Katie Brown, Carmen Simmonds and Sarah Courtney Plant who showed together at Statements two years ago. This time they’re joined by Isla Osborne, renowned for her fine glass jewellery. With intricate hand-engraved works, cast-glass sculptures, chandeliers, platters, paperweights and perfume bottles, the exhibition delivers the metamorphic elements of an exciting medium.

Phone (06) 834 1331, www.statementsgallery.co.nz

Erupt Lake Taupo Festival

6 to 16 May, Taupo

An explosive interactive work encompassing the might of what simmers beneath the volcanic plateau in the central North Island takes centre stage as part of the Taupo region’s biennial cultural festival. There is also a site-specific work staged amidst the hot roller and hairspray mania of a main-street hairdressing salon and a large-scale musical project which seeks to capture the spirit of the lake and the land. Also on the agenda are visual arts, theatre, dance, cabaret and comedy acts showcasing both local and international talent.

Phone (07) 376 0348, www.erupt.co.nz
 

Mille-Fleurs

8 May to 25 July, The Suter Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson

Events worth noting around the country

Words: Ann Warnock

The Big Easy

23 January, Snow Farm, Mt Pisa, Wanaka

This mountain-bike event has both altitude and attitude as well as an opportunity to roar through the glorious rural Otago landscape. The 40km course commences at the Snow Farm on Mt Pisa then sweeps along the mountain ridge towards Wanaka before the long haul downhill to Albert Town. The track provides a rare opportunity to traverse the rugged valleys of several farms. This “day on the bike” also offers The Big Not so Easy – an additional 20km loop soaring over the top of Mt Pisa at 1900m before descending to rejoin the main race.

Phone (03) 443 5022, www.highlandevents.co.nz

The Quiksilver ISA World Junior Surfing Championships

20 to 28 January, Piha, Auckland

The wild west coast at Piha will welcome 250 top international surfers when it hosts the biggest surfing spectacle staged in Australasia for more than 25 years. Thirty countries will be represented in what is billed as an Olympic-style event. The venue has been described by its international organizers as “an amazing location with perfect waves”.

Phone (07) 825 0018, www.isaworldjuniors.com.

2010 Chinese New Year Festival & Market Day

13 February, ASB Showgrounds, Auckland

Events worth noting around the country

Words: Ann Warnock

Cloud9

29 August to 29 November, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna O Waiwhetu

This shimmering show by nine contemporary New Zealand artists is themed with strange dreams and celestial structures. It is the fourth instalment in an emerging-artist series staged by the gallery and features new work by recent graduates Elliot Collins, Ruth Thomas Edmond, Tim Thatcher, Telly Tu’u, Georgie Hill, Marie Le Lievre, Pete Wheeler, Mike Cooke and Eileen Leung. The works explore new directions in painting techniques and celebrate a genre which has the ability to transport the viewer to another realm.

Phone (03) 941 7300, www.christchurchartgallery.org.nz

New Zealand Opera – Eugene Onegin

17 to 26 September, Auckland and 10 to 17 October, Wellington

An international cast and cutting-edge creative team light up the stage with Tchaikovsky’s great opera of honour, love, death and regret. Set in 19th-century Russia and based on Alexander Pushkin’s novel, Eugene Onegin packs dramatic and visual punch. New Zealand soprano Anna Leese stars as Tatyana alongside British baritone William Dazeley. Leading Russian conductor Alexander Polianichko, based at St Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre, takes the podium. Phone (09) 379 4068 or (04) 499 8343, www.nzopera.com

Hollywood’s Ancient World

6pm to 8pm, Wednesdays 16, 23, 30 September and 7 October, Pipitea Campus, Victoria University, Wellington

Events worth noting around the country

Words: Ann Warnock

2009 New Zealand Body Art Awards Show

25 July, Bruce Mason Centre, Auckland

Think hunchbacked, scaly swamp monsters, glow-in-the-dark children and ethereal other-worldly beings gliding across a catwalk … this is the stuff of the annual body art awards that celebrate the work of practitioners engaged in this unique medium. The event showcases the creative excellence of students, graduates and professionals and will feature hand-painted, special-effects and World of Fluorescent categories as well as a cutting-edge interpretation of New Zealand culture in the Maori Myths and Fantasies section.

Phone (09) 486 8028, www.bodyartawards.co.nz

Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park

Wednesdays 5.30 to 7.00pm, 22 July to 12 August, Central Library, Otago University, Dunedin

Compare the light and sparkling novel Pride and Prejudice with its successor, the seriously hued Mansfield Park, in a short course tailor-made for Jane Austen fans. The course is conducted by international authority Emeritus Professor Jocelyn Harris and includes discussion on recent film and television adaptations.

Phone (03) 479 5191, www.otago.ac.nz/courses/continuingeducation

Petone Winter Carnival

18 July, Petone foreshore