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Archive >> February 2010
Sculptured Meaning
At Timaru’s Phar Lap Raceway, a bronze statue of the famed Big Red and his regular jockey, Jim Pike takes pride of place. Today, the South Island city is…
Designer royalty
Prestigious industry magazine Architectural Digest has named New Zealander Sandra Nunnerley in its annual AD 100 directory which represents a “selection of the top architects and interior designers whose…
Albert Lit Up
Auckland’s 11th annual three-day Chinese Lantern Festival was held in February at Albert Park and featured performances by one of Shanghai’s top music ensembles Moon, Beijing-based Mongolian folk rock…
Kerretta play SXSW
Auckland three-piece Kerretta make their US debut in March with a show at this year’s SXSW, the festival also marking the release of their debut album, Vilayer. Drawing…
Missing the Boat
“New Zealand was a 1980s-era beacon of economic reform and rising prosperity,” writes Luke Malpass, an analyst in the New Zealand policy unit of the Centre for Independent Studies…
Seriously moving
Choreographer Neil Ieremia’s contemporary dance group Black Grace’s Gathering Clouds performance in February at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre is reviewed in the New Jersey State Ledger. Reviewer Robert Johnson writes:…
Thinking Outside the Ball
“As I tumbled down the mountainside in a gigantic beach ball filled with water, feeling somewhat like I was in a washing machine, it occurred to me…
Referendum in Sight
New Zealand is due to hold an election referendum in 2011 to enable the population to decide between using AV or the current ‘first-past-the-post’ system. Ken Ritchie, the chief…
Get Your Jet Pack Now
Inventor Glenn Martin’s jet pack will soon be commercially produced at an undisclosed site in New Zealand having finally secured sufficient investment. The 200 horsepower dual-propeller packs are the…
Outsider Made Happy
New Zealand-raised Louise Chunn, Psychologies magazine’s new editor, “is an outsider who made it” according to the Guardian’s Stephen Brook. After stints at, among others, Elle, the…
Queenstown’s Quiet Side
The Sydney Morning Herald’s Sarah Maguire visits “adrenalin-central”, but goes against-the-grain with a laid-back luxurious holiday. “Being a full-time working mother puts adrenalin into the system daily,…
Science for a change
Kumeu neuroscientist and author of The Winner’s Bible Dr Kerry Spackman shares his day, and his work, as part of the Guardian’s Nine to Five series, beginning with a…
#125 – Gin, Whisky and Moon(shine)
Edge Message # 125 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM
From left: Russell Coutts,…
Short film revolution
“Could 2010 be the year that New Zealand short filmmakers take over the world?” asks Indie Wire’s Kim Adelman. “The year began promisingly as Mark Albiston and Louis Sutherland’s…
Seeking an Identity
New Zealand pinot noir has come a long way over the past 10 years, continuing to improve each year, but because the grape is a newcomer to this country,…
Lending a Hand
Former New Zealand All Black Wellington-born Filo Tiatia, 38, now a back-row forward and coach with the Ospreys rugby region in Wales, is backing a campaign to save Swansea’s…
Debut in Dayton
Pianist Justin Bird, 25, New Zealand’s young musician of the year in 2002, recently played a solo concert at Shiloh Church in Dayton, Ohio as part of the city’s…
For the In-crowd in NY
“It’s rare to see people walk out of a fashion show, but that is indeed what happened at Rebecca Taylor — but only because the Salon tent…
Graceful turns with clouds
Contemporary dance company Black Grace is touring the US making their debut at Princeton University’s McCarter Theatre in late February, performing their signature work “Minoi” and their…
Delightfully Relaxing
On board Russell’s new 46m-long catamaran Ipipiri, which offers overnight cruises around the Bay of Islands, The Sydney Morning Herald’s Rob McFarland learns about the town’s colourful…
Memories of plasma
The Lovely Bones director Peter Jackson “should forswear sugar next time and reintroduce himself to plasma, brain matter, puke, shit and intestines; all the elements that gave his earlier,…
Way of life applauded
Hawkes Bay couple Tom and Barbara Burstyn’s documentary This Way of Life about a Maori family living a subsistence lifestyle has screened at the Berlin Film Festival to…
#124: A Kiwi, a Kea and a Weta walk into a bar…
Edge Message #124 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM
Sir Peter Snell (Marty…
Attention to Change
Former prime minister Helen Clark, now head of the United Nation’s Development Agency, was recently at Sydney’s Lowy Institute calling for climate change to be put at the centre…
Cattle by Numbers
New Zealanders are now outnumbered by 5.8 million dairy cattle according to Statistics New Zealand’s latest agricultural production survey. New Zealand has a human population of 4.3 million. The…
Walker’s inspiration
Karen Walker combined The Sound of Music with Bob Dylan and then threw in a snazzy sunglasses to create a collection dubbed “Sun Gods” at this year’s New…
Lauded for a lifetime
Soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa will be presented with a lifetime achievement award at the 11th annual Classical Brits to be held at the Royal Albert Hall on May…
Smokin’ in the US
Singer/songwriter Gin Wigmore makes her US debut in March playing a selection of southern tour dates with US band Citizen Cope. Auckland-born Wigmore, 23, will release her first full-length,…
Sounds of old and new
The New Zealand String Quartet recently performed a programme entitled “East Meets West” at Ithaca College’s Ford Hall. The programme featured music by Beethoven, Shostakovich and contemporary Chinese, Japanese…
Unique Fine Dining
Pipis, paua, tuatua, feijoas, kumara, cervena, puha and horipito are just some of the unfamiliar items found on the menu in New Zealand restaurants, Winsor Dobbins of…
Mile Win for Willis
Lower Hutt-born middle distance runner Nick Willis, 27, currently based in Michigan, has won the mile run at the 15th Boston Indoor Games. Willis crossed the finish line in…
Trailer: Out of the Blue
On the anchor stone
“There’s a flock of noisy kakas on my front lawn, quarrelling over some croissants left over from breakfast,” describes The Independent’s Kathy Marks, holidaying on Stewart Island,…
Whiskey Windfall
From the ice outside Shackleton’s Antarctic hut a team from the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust have found three cases of Chas Mackinlay & Co’s whisky and…
To Scrap or not to Scrap
The New Zealand Herald has called for the country’s 108-year-old-flag to be scrapped. Under the banner headline “It’s time for a change”, The New Zealand Herald, the country’s largest circulating…
Bouncing Success
Christchurch engineer Dr Keith Alexander’s Springfree Trampoline has won the “Children’s Product of the Year” in the largest United States consumer product survey, the Product of the Year Awards….
Multi-tasking Birds
Two female royal albatrosses at Taiaroa Head Royal Albatross Centre on the Otago Peninsula have successfully incubated a chick, after the father — one of scores to recently leave…
Seizing the Spirit
Crowded House are proving popular in the UK as a second concert at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall was added “due to phenomenal demand after tickets for the first night went…
Phoenix Survive Playoff
With Phoenix goal keeper Liam Reddy fending off an attack by Perth in a penalty shootout in front of a record crowd of 25,000 at the Cake Tin, the…
Towards the Moon
Wellington mountain-running and marathon champion Melissa Moon, 40, won the women’s section of New York City’s annual Empire State Building Run-Up, passing 300 runners and ascending 1576 steps to…
McAlpine Stylish By Design
The international career of Waiuku-born, Elam-educated film designer Andrew McAlpine continues to unfurl in ever-larger circles. McAlpine’s most recently-designed film, An Education (produced by Wellington-born Finola Dwyer) is…
Weta woos Hollywood
Wellington-based Weta Digital, which was behind the effects work on blockbusters Avatar and District 9, has been nominated for nine Academy Awards; CNET Asia’s Daniel Terdiman says the “accolades…
Gusty But Gourmet
“With more than 300 bars, restaurants and cafes in the city alone, Wellington is certainly not short of options,” recommends Winsor Dobbin for The Sydney Morning Herald….
