Picnic in Boulder
New Zealand dance troupe EyeSoar Performance opened the second day of the weekend Boulder Fall Festival in Colorado with a 3-minute modern-day circus act called, “A Delightful Show”. Shown entirely through a narrative dance,…
Blog Archives
South Pacific
“A major new talent destined for greatness”. Samoan Jonathan Lemalu, continues to stun the UK music scene. As well as featuring on the cover of the Sunday Times Magazine, the bass baritone received the Young Artist Award…
Island Paradise
Waiheke Island’s Mudbrick Vineyard & Restaurant is recommended by the Wall Street Journal in an article about worldwide wine tours. Waiheke Island features alongside the Barossa Valley, Australia; Western Cape, South Africa and Grover…
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 13. Dame Kiri joins a…
Meeting of minds
New Zealanders director Jane Campion, 55, and actress Kerry Fox, 43, tell The Independent on Sunday how they both came to meet. Fox recalls: “I walked into the audition for An Angel at My…
Spontaneous breeze
“In person, Campion is neither gorilla nor goddess,” writes Guardian correspondent Peter Conrad. “The breeze derives from her quirky humour and the mercurial play of expression on her face; her greying hair and her…
Conceptual Costs
Professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury and author of The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure and Human Evolution Denis Dutton writes an opinion piece for The New York Times on the surprises conceptual…
Down and Dirty
A group of New Zealanders are making a film about the US journalist Eric Arnold who spent a year in Marlborough learning how to make wine at the Allan Scott vineyard. Based on Arnold’s…
Wairarapa Cheer
The annual Toast Martinborough wine, food and music festival, now in its 18th year, is “a chance to taste new season drops from the area’s renowned boutique producers,” writes Sarah Maguire for the WA…
Big Easy Baller
Auckland local Sean Marks is enjoying regular playing time on the New Orleans Hornets, one of America’s top basketball teams. Recently interviewed by InsiderHoops.com, Marks describes how he grew up in a markedly different…
Not Quite the End
When Tim Finn and Split Enz supported Skyhooks and AC/DC at Sydney’s Festival Hall in 1975, they were booed at by teenager Magda Szubanski. “Years later, Magda admitted that she was booing us —…
Speed Demoness
New Zealand racing star Christina Orr will be competing in this year’s Bathurst 12 Hour Race, driving for Jim Hunter Motorsport. The 2008 Bruce McLaren New Zealand Driver of the Year will be teaming…
Goodbye to a Good Guy
Former All Black front rower John Drake has died at his home in Mt Maunganui aged 49. Drake was a tighthead prop in the World Cup-winning All Blacks team of 1987. In recent years…
An Astral Heritage
23 November 2008 – Tekapo’s Graeme Murray – director of Earth & Sky at Mt John Observatory – is the driving force behind obtaining UNESCO World Heritage Starlight Reserve status for the pristine skies…
Pride in Heritage
New Zealand’s first Governor-General of Asian descent Anand Satyanand – who recently paid a visit to India – is the subject of an article in The Times of India, which discusses how “the heirs…
The American Dream
New Zealand is an enticing destination for American property developers and investors because the populace speaks English, there are minimal restrictions on ownership and land is still relatively cheap. There are also no property…
Maori Treasure in Ireland
The extensive Maori art collection – part of a larger ethnological collection of exotic Pacific art – at Dublin’s National Museum includes, the Meyler collection, pieces Captain James Cook acquired on his voyages and…
Investigating a Colossus
Te Papa’s colossal squid, the largest ever caught, has created a worldwide media furore making headlines from South Africa and Germany, to Iran and Uruguay. Very little is known about colossal squid; only…
Sir Geoffrey’s TV Legacy
Celebrated New Zealand journalist and soldier Sir Geoffrey Cox has died in Britain, aged 97. As editor-in-chief of Britain’s ITN from 1956 to 1968, Sir Geoffrey built the foundations of 50 years of popular…
Tauranga on the Make
Monocle magazine devoted a five-page spread to Tauranga in its November issue. The article charts the Bay of Plenty city’s rise from sleepy retirement village to boom town, courtesy of a new wave of…
Black Beauty Strikes at Brno
Team NZ is top of the A1 Grand Prix table after scoring a double victory in Brno, Czech Republic. Black Beauty driver Jonny Reid won both the sprint and feature races, pushing NZ past…
Doyen of deconstructivism
NZ architect Mark Wigley is name-checked in Dwell magazine’s monthly Architectural Movements 101 section. Wigley’s famous Deconstructivist Architecture exhibition, with Philip Johnson, forms the basis of Dwell’s May article devoted to the…
New Zealander Heads Microsoft Innovation
NZ software architect Nigel Keam has spearheaded the development of Microsoft’s new Surface technology, the subject of much excitement and speculation in the computing industry. Surface is a tabletop PC device with a touch interface that uses…
NZ Judge Finds PM Blair Guilty
Retired NZ Supreme Court judge Ted Thomas has published an article condemning outgoing British PM Tony Blair for his “immoral and illegal” invasion of Iraq. The essay, which is written as a judicial…
Brad McGann Was Acclaimed Director
NZ filmmaker Brad McGann has died aged 43 (cancer). His adaptation of the Maurice Gee novel In My Father’s Den won ten awards at the 2006 NZ Screen Awards, and the International Critics Award…
Auckland Pioneers Landing Technique
Auckland International Airport is leading the world in trialling a landing method designed to reduce fuel use and emissions. Beginning April 18, the test landings will see selected Air NZ and Qantas jets glide into the…
Queen of the Track
Current world champ Katherine Prumm enjoyed back to back wins in the opening round of the Australian Women’s Motocross Championships in Victoria. The South Auckland Kawasaki rider was her own harshest critic, claiming “I…
No Such Thing as Waste
A NZ company has stunned international researchers by successfully developing a fuel which blends petrol with organic waste. The Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation’s breakthrough bio-diesel is made up of 95% petrol and 5% liquid squeezed from algae grown…
Good Things Come in Threes
The Royal NZ Ballet’s recent tour earned high praise in the Australian national media. The RNZB performed a trio of works by Christopher Hampson, Javier de Frutos and Michael Parmenter, collectively entitled Trinity. The…
Prime Coverage at Chelsea
The 100% NZ Garden won a silver medal at the gardening world’s most prestigious annual event – the Chelsea Garden Show. The garden was inspired by the West Coast of Auckland, and features a black sand beach…
Something old, something new
The internationally acclaimed NZ String Quartet made an impressive debut in Minneapolis, performing as part of the annual Music in the Part Series in St Paul. The Quartet’s program included the world premiere of NZ composer…
Kiwi scoops top Australian award
Slow Water by Annamarie Jagose won the prestigious AU$30,000 fiction prize at the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards in October. Jagose has lived in Australia for 12 years and is currently on leave from the…
Lives on the Edge
National Geographic report details NZ’s world-leading conservation programmes, set up to preserve and protect our “virtual Noah’s Ark of bizarre animals.” NZ is considered a pioneering force in the establishment of animal sanctuaries, with 198 translocation projects involving…
Jolly green giant
It’s official: Shrek 2 is the third highest-grossing film of all time, behind Titanic and the first Star Wars. Directed by Kiwi Andrew Adamson, Shrek 2 was the surprise hit of the US…
Off the Beaten Track
NZ is one of 30 “hot spots for switched on travellers” recommended by Lonely Planet for 2004. To avoid the inevitable horde of Rings fans, LP suggests taking the Pacific Coast Highway down the Coromandel Peninsula, stopping…
Talking Turkey
Evolutionary biologists at Auckland University have made ivory tower headlines by providing compelling evidence of the origins of the Indo-European language family. Associate Professor Russell Gray and PhD student Quentin Atkinson applied a complex computer program modelled…
Clean Dealings
An annual survey by global anti-corruption campaigners, Transparency International, ranks NZ as the world’s third cleanest business environment (equal with Denmark) on 9.5 points. Finland topped the list with 9.7 points, followed by Iceland on 9.6. The…
Watching Wildlife World-Leaders
Kiwi production company NHNZ scooped three awards at the 2003 NaturVision wildlife film festival held in Munich, Germany. The Case of the Baby-Faced Assassin (above) a documentary on Australia’s nocturnal carnivorous marsupial,…
The Bomb Stays Banned
July marked the 30th anniversary of “what was probably the first state-sponsored Ban the Bomb protest” – NZ PM Norman Kirk’s diplomatic and symbolic attack on the French government. In outrage at continued nuclear testing by France…
Making music behind the scenes
19-year-old New Zealander Martine Hardaker is one of three students featured in an article on the prestigious Violin Making School of America. The four-year program involves more than just sanding and filing; pupils study…
Harold Gillies
“Rhinoplasty, skin grafts, and facial reconstructions have been practised for centuries. However, it was New Zealander Harold Delf Gillies who standardised these techniques and established the discipline of ‘plastic surgery’. In 1920, his text…
Chop Till You Drop
NZ axemen Jason Wynyard and David Bolstad came out ahead in the points race at the 8th Annual Ducks Unlimited Great Outdoors Festival in Memphis, Tennessee. Over 72,000 people attended the Festival, with the Stihl Timbersports stage…
Young Man and the River
Fly-fishing enthusiast Andy Pietrasik raved about his recent trip to the rivers of the South Island. Following his guide up the river in search of fish made him feel like “Ernest Hemingway’s shadow,” so perhaps…
Shadow play
The allure of the artistic life, “the journey towards the light” is the central concern of Maurice Gee’s “thoughtful” new novel Ellie and the Shadow Man, reviewed by Nicola Walker.
Asian Free Trade Zone
Japan is keen to envelop New Zealand and Australia into its vision for an Asian free-trade zone in both trade and investment, and beyond into technology, education and tourism.
Reviewing the Guard
Prime Minister Helen Clark reviews the honor guard as she is welcomed to Beijing.
Abandoning “Captain Calamity”
Crew-member Rob Salvidge said goodbye to round-the-world challenger Tony Bullimore at “a late-night cook-up in a Maori taxi-drivers’ cafe in Wellington”.
Elegant Astelia
A New Zealand silver astelia adds elegance to Irish garden designer Dominick Murphy’s small garden.
Big Job for McKinnon
“Turbulence in Zimbabwe, civil war in Sierra Leone, the violent overthrow of prime ministers in Fiji and the Solomons; the Commonwealth’s programme of improving the quality of democracy ran into political setbacks in 2000. On the other…
Maximum Coverage
Prodigy frontman Maxim sports New Zealand-made jewelry – two Ms, also the cover art on his new album Hell’s Kitchen.
Escape from Middle Earth
With a $100 000 budget and all the glamour Wellington could muster, the Rings wrap party was like “something straight out of Tolkien”.
Star Detective
Newbie Hamilton security man Gillie Henare explains his efficient lifter-nabbing techniques: “they use a lot of tricks to smuggle stuff out. You look for things like the bulging stomach, loose sleeves, bags. Once you’ve seen it…
Miracle Flightless
Since 1984, New Zealand has undergone “the most comprehensive economic reform programme undertaken by any OECD country in recent decades”. Not all the results have been bright: “Looking back over the past 15 years, you would have…
Tex Morton
New Zealander Tex Morton lived a life of breath-taking achievement. He attained fortune and huge international fame in several careers: a recording star (300 songs), singer-songwriter, stage artist (touring sensation in North America, Europe,…
