Review: Eight Songs for a Mad King
King George III, despite having been a learned and enthusiastic sponsor of scientific and industrial progress, a faithful husband and father, and in many ways very liberal for his time (except pro-slavery, just saying), is basically famous for having gone mad. That madness has been scrutinized, diagnosed, and mocked roundly in modern literature, film, TV, […]
Books giveaway: Dreamweavers #1 and #2
Te Rā Aroha Press are about to launch Isa Pearl Ritchie’s Into the Labyrinth, the second of her Wellington-based YA Dreamweavers fantasy series (following on from Awa and the Dreamweavers, released last year). The series features Awa… …an intermediate student navigating changes to her family as a child of divorce, moving to a new school, […]
Sex Workers of Aotearoa: A Day in the Life of
Sex workers and artists have gone hand in hand for hundreds if not thousands of years. Think of basically nearly every nude woman in a classic painting by a white dude, or Moulin Rouge, or ‘Victoria’ or countless other examples and you get the idea. Oh sure, they’re muses. But what if we didn’t centre […]
James and Bullseye Bella
While the Wellingtonista is what we do on the side of our day jobs, it turns out that almost all Wellingtonistas have a side hustle on the side of the side. Case in point: our fearless leader only went and wrote a bloody book didn’t he? So I had a chat to him. Hey […]
Review: NZSO Baroque Series — Water Music
Telemann: Water Music “Hamburger Ebb und Fluth” (TWV 55:C3) Händel: Water Music (HWV 348–350) St. Paul’s Cathedral, Wellington Friday 1 Feb 2019 Listening to the two “Water Music” suites by Telemann and Handel fill the echoing expanse of St. Paul’s, I wondered how it is we find reverberation so attractive. Is it a cultural association […]
NZSO Shed Series: “Juxtaposition”
My first trip to the new Shed 6 was a few weeks ago to see contemporary music outfit Stroma. They were playing a sampler of modern art music, stretching from Ravel and Schoenberg, through Boulez and Berio, to more recent work by Gillian Whitehead and David Lang. Music writer Alex Ross was our tour guide, […]
Toi Art at Te Papa — a first floor glimpse
When you’re stepping into Te Papa’s new gallery space Toi Art, be prepared for something a little different from your standard gallery experience. Toi Art is a gallery space 20 years in the making, it takes over two floors of Te Papa and the new entrance gallery is larger than any space at Te Papa. I […]
It’s Festivals time!
It’s almost that glorious point in Wellington’s calendar when the New Zealand Festival (23 February — 18 March), the Performance Arcade (23–25 Feb, 1–4 March) the Pride Festival (24 February — 10 March) and the NZ Fringe Festival Wellington (2–24 March) are all on at the same time. I love it for the exciting mix […]
Sacha Lees
Wellington artist Sacha Lees began her career working on The Lord of the Rings trilogy as an illustrator, airbrush artist and creature designer. These days Lees, originally from the West Coast, is a leading artist. She developed her painting technique in Florence and now specialises in the “fantastic” genre — a movement specialising in mythical creatures and […]