Blog Archives

East Coast Surfer Ricardo Christie Makes Elite Tour

East Coast Surfer Ricardo Christie Makes Elite Tour

Mahia-born Ricardo Christie, 26, is the first New Zealander since Gisborne’s Maz Quinn in 2001 to qualify for surfing’s elite 2015 Dream Tour. To say he’s done things his own way would be an understatement…

Tanya Jacobs Ensuring Cirque Du Soleil’s Wardrobe Flies

Tanya Jacobs Ensuring Cirque Du Soleil’s Wardrobe Flies

New Zealand-born wardrobe director Tanya Jacobs has toured with the Cirque du Soleil show Varekai ever since she first began working for the company, overseeing the maintenance of late Japanese designer Eiko Ishioka’s aesthetic…

Former Strictly Star Erin Boag Returns to the Stage

Former Strictly Star Erin Boag Returns to the Stage

For all its glamour and sparkle, one can’t help but feel that Strictly Come Dancing’s star burns a little less brightly since New Zealand-born Erin Boag departed two years ago, according to the Western…

Jesse Will Gets Taylor Swift’s Approval for Shake It off Cover

Jesse Will Gets Taylor Swift’s Approval for Shake It off Cover

New Zealand musician Jesse Will, 24, has became an overnight sensation with megastar Taylor Swift tweeting a glowing endorsement of his Shake It Off cover, calling it the best rendition by another artist. “My…

New Zealand Entrenched as World Cup Favourites

New Zealand Entrenched as World Cup Favourites

“This year will end just as it began, with New Zealand sitting firmly on top of the rugby world. The All Blacks have been the top-ranked team for five years and will again head…

Marton Csokas Employs Brutal Tactics in New Miniseries

Marton Csokas Employs Brutal Tactics in New Miniseries

New Zealand actor Marton Csokas plays General Thomas Gage in the History Channel miniseries Sons of Liberty, which premieres on 25 January. Sons of Liberty, a three-part, six-hour series, which was filmed in Romania, tells…

Kapiti Musician Stefan Wolf Wins International Video Award

Kapiti Musician Stefan Wolf Wins International Video Award

Kapiti Coast musician Stefan Wolf has won the Best International Video – Pacific award at this year’s Australian Independent Music Video Awards for his lament about lost friendships, On Your Side. The video was filmed…

Brazilian Filmmaker David Schurmann Heads Back to NZ

Brazilian Filmmaker David Schurmann Heads Back to NZ

New Zealand Film and Television School graduate, Brazilian film director David Schurmann, is shooting Little Secret, inspired by the life of his adopted sister Kat Schurmann, and written by Marcos Bernstein, scribe of Walter…

Monocle’s Forecast for NZ in 2015

Monocle’s Forecast for NZ in 2015

There are three challenges New Zealand faces in 2015, according to Monocle magazine. Much of the success of Prime Minister John Key, who led the National party to a landslide in the September elections,…

Oana Jones’ 3D Printed Record Player Worldwide Hit

Oana Jones’ 3D Printed Record Player Worldwide Hit

A working vinyl record player made with a 3D printer has gained Auckland animation tutor Oana Jones worldwide attention. Jones created the player for a competition run by American independent record label Ghostly International…

Lorde Finds Sisterhood with Katniss in Mockingjay Songs

Lorde Finds Sisterhood with Katniss in Mockingjay Songs

Lorde’s low hum that begins her new single, Yellow Flicker Beat takes the viewer from the final shot of the transformed heroine Katniss Everdeen to the closing credits of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay –…

Paul Ewen’ Latest Novel Brilliant Satire of Booker Set

Paul Ewen’ Latest Novel Brilliant Satire of Booker Set

In his second novel New Zealander Paul Ewen “cranks up his deadpan satirical style through one Francis Plug, and catches a vast array of contemporary Booker prizewinners in his firing line,” Ben Myers writes…

Lucy Lawless Plays Evil Queen in Californian Pantomime

Lucy Lawless Plays Evil Queen in Californian Pantomime

Actress Lucy Lawless is currently portraying the evil queen Carabosse in a California-based production of Sleeping Beauty and Her Winter Knight. Through 4 January, at the Pasadena Playhouse, Lawless plays alongside Ben Giroux (Hart of…

Tami Neilson’s Dynamite Deserves to Explode in US

Tami Neilson’s Dynamite Deserves to Explode in US

Virtually unknown in the US, New Zealand-based singer Tami Neilson has accrued awards aplenty in recent years, but with her 2014 album Dynamite she has crafted something truly special that deserves to explode with…

Herbst Architects’ Sensitive Retreat Invites the Outside in

Herbst Architects’ Sensitive Retreat Invites the Outside in

A new beach house – “overlooking New Zealand’s breathtaking Whangarei Heads” – designed by Auckland husband-and-wife team Lance and Nicola Herbst is featured on design magazine Wallpaper’s website. “Situated on a cranked ridge line ……

Brendon McCullum Makes Australia’s Cricketers Look Average

Brendon McCullum Makes Australia’s Cricketers Look Average

In the Boxing Day Test against Sri Lanka in Christchurch, Black Caps skipper Brendon McCullum, 33, was just five runs short of demolishing what could possibly have been the fastest ever double century in…

Billy Apple’s Retrospective Not like Anyone Else’s

Billy Apple’s Retrospective Not like Anyone Else’s

Ahead of Billy Apple’s 2015 retrospective exhibition Billy Apple®: The Artist Has to Live Like Everybody Else at Auckland Art Gallery, arts publication Yareah Magazine looks back at the life of New Zealand’s most…

Wellington Makes Rough Guides Top Ten Best Cities for 2015

Wellington Makes Rough Guides Top Ten Best Cities for 2015

Wellington is one of the Rough Guides Top 10 city destinations for 2015 sitting at sixth place alongside No 1 destination Johannesburg, Malaga, New Orleans, Hamburg, Nizwa, Belgrade, Salta, Birmingham and Yangon. “Big-budget films helped…

Lisa Walker’s Unconventional Jewels Make Italian Vogue

Lisa Walker’s Unconventional Jewels Make Italian Vogue

Wellingtonian Lisa Walker’s “large, colourful jewels … are ‘food for art’, according to Vogue Italia, and “it’s the colour that first strikes the observer”. “This designer from New Zealand is constantly seeking to offer an…

Maori Feature in New Book Documenting World’s Tribes

Maori Feature in New Book Documenting World’s Tribes

Powerful portraits of Maori feature in a new book about 31 unique tribes by British photojournalist Jimmy Nelson called, Before They Pass Away, “an irreplaceable ethnographic record of a fast disappearing world.” Nelson writes…

Chartbusters Sol3 Mio Poised to Tackle the World

Chartbusters Sol3 Mio Poised to Tackle the World

Fresh from performing the New Zealand national anthem in Chicago for a rare rugby match between the USA Eagles and world-champion All Blacks, operatic trio Sol3 Mio are hoping for many more thumping victories…

Carbon Converter LanzaTech Has Significant Global Potential

Carbon Converter LanzaTech Has Significant Global Potential

Illinois-based LanzaTech, which got its start in a New Zealand basement in 2005, plans to revolutionise ethanol production with a gas-eating microbe, which converts waste gases into useful chemicals and fuels, including ethanol. LanzaTech has…

Golden Boot Awarded to Warrior Shaun Johnson

Golden Boot Awarded to Warrior Shaun Johnson

Warriors half-back Shaun Johnson has won the Golden Boot for the best rugby league player in 2014, only the fourth New Zealander to win the prestigious award. The panel of 13 judges gave Johnson nearly…

Hayley Westenra Sings Holiday Favourites for Wisconsin Fans

Hayley Westenra Sings Holiday Favourites for Wisconsin Fans

Acclaimed Christchurch-born soprano Hayley Westenra, 27, who has mesmerised audiences across continents, appeared with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra (WCO) at the Orpheum Theater on 18 and 19 December singing Christmas favourites. Westenra’s music director, Tim…

All Black Sensation Dan Carter’s Paris Move a Big Deal

All Black Sensation Dan Carter’s Paris Move a Big Deal

All Black great Dan Carter, 32, is poised to become the world’s highest-paid rugby player when he moves to France after next year’s Rugby World Cup on a three-year deal with Paris club Racing…

Who’s-Who of NZ Sidemen Join Guy Pierce on Debut

Who’s-Who of NZ Sidemen Join Guy Pierce on Debut

An assured, confident debut album draws from Australian actor Guy Pearce’s genuinely appealing voice and a who’s-who of New Zealand sidemen, including Liam Finn regular Jon Mulholland and Tim Finn/Gin Wigmore guitarist Brett Adams. “[The…

Te Araroa Trail One of the World’s Dream Hikes

Te Araroa Trail One of the World’s Dream Hikes

Long-distance tramping route, New Zealand’s new 3000km Te Araroa Trail, is considered one of National Geographic’s best hikes in the world. This year, the publication asked 20 outdoor luminaries – from trail runners to CEOs…

Melanie Lynskey the Voice of an Irascible Cartoon Bluebird

Melanie Lynskey the Voice of an Irascible Cartoon Bluebird

New Zealand-born actress Melanie Lynskey, who starred alongside Charlie Sheen in television comedy Two and a Half Men, is the voice of bluebird Beatrice in the “beautiful” Cartoon Network 10-part miniseries Over the Garden…

Writing Isn’t Just about Expression Says Author Eleanor Catton

Writing Isn’t Just about Expression Says Author Eleanor Catton

Author Eleanor Catton, who is a participant in The Hindu Lit Fest in January 2015, talks to the Hindu about why writing isn’t just about expression but about impression too. Catton, who has set up…

Ferryman Alan Brann Working the Waters of the Columbia River

Ferryman Alan Brann Working the Waters of the Columbia River

Alan Brann, known better as Kiwi, ferries passengers and cargo to and from the big ships in the Lower Columbia River at the Port of Astoria in Oregon aboard his boat, Miss Molly. In…

Empire Reunites Peter Jackson and the Bad Taste Gang

Empire Reunites Peter Jackson and the Bad Taste Gang

For the January issue of Empire, devoted entirely to bidding “Farewell to Middle-earth,” Peter Jackson and the crew of the 1987 splatter classic, Bad Taste are reunited “to reminiscence about the crazy shoot.” “That year,…

GM President Dan Ammann Instilling Culture of Accountability

GM President Dan Ammann Instilling Culture of Accountability

General Motors executive Dan Ammann talks to Fortune about manufacturing in Mexico, and because of a number of recalls over the past decade, how he aims to instill a culture of accountability among the…

Portrayal of Genesis Earns Cliff Curtis Best Actor Accolades

Portrayal of Genesis Earns Cliff Curtis Best Actor Accolades

Cliff Curtis has won best actor at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards for his portrayal of Genesis Potini in The Dark Horse, ahead of veteran Australian actor David Gulpilil, who won the prize…

Battle of the Five Armies Packs Huge Chain Mail Punch

Battle of the Five Armies Packs Huge Chain Mail Punch

Upon its release in Britain, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies was met with great enthusiasm, with UK newspapers agreeing the New Zealand director has completed his trilogy with verve. “Jackson’s…

Susan Te Kahurangi King’s Vociferous Drawings Animate NY

Susan Te Kahurangi King’s Vociferous Drawings Animate NY

Since the early 1960s, New Zealand artist Susan Te Kahurangi King – who makes her gallery debut in Chelsea, New York – “has been reworking Looney Tunes characters like a rogue animator, abstracting, distorting…

Nine Things We’ve Learned about Peter Jackson’s Epic Saga

Nine Things We’ve Learned about Peter Jackson’s Epic Saga

“Just as there are nine members of the Fellowship, here are nine things we have learned from Peter Jackson’s six-picture behemoth …” Guardian journalist Ryan Gilbey gives us the rundown. “It’s big. But how big?…

Roger Donaldson Remembers New Zealand Beginnings

Roger Donaldson Remembers New Zealand Beginnings

Before he became one of Hollywood’s most dependable big-movie helmers with hits for stars such as Eastwood, Pacino, Cruise, Costner, Hopkins, Statham, Brosnan, Roger Donaldson, 69, literally helped invent the film industry in New…

It’s Official, Kimbra Is the Coolest

It’s Official, Kimbra Is the Coolest

New Zealander Kimbra is officially the “coolest” according to Nylon magazine, telling their readers that if they’re not already familiar with the singer then, “it’s time to get acclimated.” “Her music has the power to…

Crowded House the ARIAs’ First Superstars

Crowded House the ARIAs’ First Superstars

At the inaugural Australian Record Industry Association awards (ARIAs) in 1987, New Zealand judge (and now Australianised) Jenny Morris was joined by a countryman whose second band was named best new talent and went…

Mark Wigley Judging Hot Helsinki Guggenheim Competition

Mark Wigley Judging Hot Helsinki Guggenheim Competition

New Zealand born architect and author Mark Wigley is the jury chair for the Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition, which has now announced finalists for the as-yet-unapproved Guggenheim art museum in Finland’s capital. The jury has…

Roland Taylor’s Sydney Storm Grabs World’s Attention

Roland Taylor’s Sydney Storm Grabs World’s Attention

Sydney’s spectacular early-season storms may just crack open a photographic career for Wanaka-born Roland Taylor, with his recent images attracting hundreds of thousands of online views. Taylor, 24, combined a perfect vantage point…

Arrow Star Manu Bennett Revels in Playing the Bad Guy

Arrow Star Manu Bennett Revels in Playing the Bad Guy

Playing the bad guy has never worried New Zealand-born actor Manu Bennett who enjoys the roles of two deliciously deviant characters at the moment: Arrow’s anti-hero Slade Wilson (aka Deathstroke) and the terrifying Orc…

John Gallas’ Cat Is the Guardian Poem of the Week

John Gallas’ Cat Is the Guardian Poem of the Week

“In this modern take on Baudelaire, a moment of sensual connection with a pet resonates with a lover’s unknowability” in New Zealander John Gallas’ poem, Cat, the Guardian’s “Poem of the week”. “Gallas recently published…

Canadian and Californian Pie Shops Loved by Locals

Canadian and Californian Pie Shops Loved by Locals

New Zealand-owned pie shops are popping up all over the place with Wiseys Pies & Bakehouse in Toronto, Canada and BurtoNZ Bakery in California the latest to introduce our savoury traditions to the world.

Plastic Surgeon Simon Talbot Completes Double Arm Transplant

Plastic Surgeon Simon Talbot Completes Double Arm Transplant

Originally from Hamilton, Dr Simon Talbot, 38, a reconstructive plastic surgeon specialising in hand surgery, has led a team in a ground-breaking double arm transplant on a quadruple amputee at Brigham and Women’s Hospital…

Flat White Having Something of a Moment in LA

Flat White Having Something of a Moment in LA

You can with increasing frequency find a flat white on the menu boards at specialty coffee shops around Los Angeles, from Coffee + Food and other cafés that take their inspiration from New Zealand and…

Optically nourishing Birds With Skymirrors premieres in US

Optically nourishing Birds With Skymirrors premieres in US

“While many artists may feel moved to address climate change, the matter has special urgency for the Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio and the members of his company, Mau,” New York Times correspondent…

Rodd & Gunn Opens Flagship Store in NY Showroom

Rodd & Gunn Opens Flagship Store in NY Showroom

New Zealand-owned menswear retailer Rodd & Gunn, which was established in 1946, is stepping up its global expansion plans with a flagship showroom on Madison Avenue in New York. Managing director Mike Beagley, who joined…

Bret Mckenzie Nails Music for Old Spice Commercial

Bret Mckenzie Nails Music for Old Spice Commercial

Bret McKenzie has composed a “lunatic” 60-second musical for men’s aftershave brand Old Spice, and “Dadsong” “isn’t just an important component – it’s the main component, around which everything revolves”, according to Adweek. Sara Matarazzo,…

Chance for Another Olympic Medal Says Mark Todd

Chance for Another Olympic Medal Says Mark Todd

Sir Mark Todd was not from a horsey background, he tells the Swindon Advertiser, but fell in love with the sport from an early age. Little did he know, when he was borrowing a…

Paracanoeist Curtis McGrath Awarded in Queensland

Paracanoeist Curtis McGrath Awarded in Queensland

Former soldier, New Zealand-born Curtis McGrath, 26, has won the Courier-Mail/McDonald’s Queensland Athlete with a Disability award for paracanoeing. McGrath, a sapper with the Royal Australian Engineers Corps, lost both his legs in Afghanistan in…

Ben Shewry Invites the World to Tasmania for Lavish Dinner

Ben Shewry Invites the World to Tasmania for Lavish Dinner

Australia’s best chefs, our own Ben Shewry (pictured, right) and locals Peter Gilmore (centre) and Neil Perry, recently hosted one of the most lavish meals in the country’s history, designed to convince international visitors…

Amazing Race Host Phil Keoghan’s Workout-Anywhere Tips

Amazing Race Host Phil Keoghan’s Workout-Anywhere Tips

How does New Zealander Phil Keoghan, globe-trotting Amazing Race host, stay fit? the Los Angeles Times asks. By finding a “gym” anywhere he goes. Keoghan gets around. The host of the Emmy-winning CBS show since…

George Johnson’s Captivating Canvasses Exhibited

George Johnson’s Captivating Canvasses Exhibited

Nelson-born George Johnson is a giant of Australian “geometric abstraction” and his work, along with that of local heavyweights Jon Plapp and Trevor Vickers, was recently exhibited at Melbourne’s Nancy Sever Gallery. In a review…

Antarctica Travelogue Gorgeously Photographed

Antarctica Travelogue Gorgeously Photographed

“Anthony Powell’s Antarctica: A Year on Ice is a gorgeously photographed travelogue about the harshest terrain on Earth,” writes Star Tribune reviewer Colin Covert. “Powell’s feature-length documentary is a trove of time-lapse shots and…

Yacht Designer Ron Holland Keeping an Eye on the Wind

Yacht Designer Ron Holland Keeping an Eye on the Wind

Ron Holland is the mega-yacht designer behind the world’s largest sloop, the M5. The former Aucklander, who lives in Vancouver, had the 60-million-euro vessel built in fibreglass at the Southampton, England yards of Vosper…