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Arts
Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood Does the Improbable
“Eleanor Catton’s third novel, Birnam Wood, is a big book, a sophisticated page-turner, that does something improbable: It filters anarchist, monkeywrenching environmental politics, a generational (anti-baby boomer) cri de…
Kirk Harding’s Bad Habit Label Growing Roster
The self-styled “outsider” label Bad Habit, co-founded in 2015 by New Zealander Kirk Harding and Nigerian-American Matthew “Baus” Adesuyan, has added a live piece to its existing management, publishing…
M3GAN Director Gerard Johnstone on Inspirations
With executive producer James Wan and producer Jason Blum already blue skying ideas for sequels, Syfy got on a Zoom with M3GAN director, New Zealander Gerard Johnstone, to ask…
Sam Neill’s Memoir a Real Charmer
Over almost 50 years, since his big-screen feature debut in Landfall, made in New Zealand, the beloved New Zealand actor who became Sir Sam last year, has brought a…
Atamira’s Te Wheke Debuts at NY’s Joyce Theater
“Founded in 2000 in New Zealand, Atamira fuses Māori cultural expression with contemporary dance theatre. There’s an admirable integrity to how the group doesn’t explain much to…
In the Studio with Painter Angela Heisch
New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based artist Angela Heisch takes inspiration from organic forms and patterns in nature for her luminous, abstract paintings. Her solo exhibition ‘Low Speed Highs’ at Pippy Houldsworth…
Actor Simone Kessell Seeing Industry Change
Playing adult Lottie in the second season is a breakout moment for the New Zealand-born actor Simone Kessell – but like her accomplished co-stars, she’s been here…
The Tattooist of Auschwitz Is Coming to TV
The Tattooist of Auschwitz, the bestselling novel by New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based writer Heather Morris is being turned into a six-part television series, Karl Quinn reports for The Sydney Morning…
Katherine Mansfield, A Magician with Words
American author Roberta Silman reviews Claire Harman’s new biography of Katherine Mansfield, All Sorts of Lives: Katherine Mansfield and the Art of Risking Everything, for…
The Examined Life of Melanie Lynskey
In series like Yellowjackets, New Plymouth-born actor Melanie Lynskey specialises in revealing the turbulent emotions of women who seem innocuous and mild on the surface, Alexis Soloski writes in…
Mansfield’s “Bliss” considered a “paragon of modernist literature”
“Influence in writing is often spoken about as something dirty or shameful, something to be avoided, but here it offers a way for artists to connect across decades, to…
Cocaine Bear is Actually Allan Henry
The cocaine bear in Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear is an impressive feat of visual effects wizardry, but there was an actual person behind the 227-kilogram, drug-addicted beast, and that…
Reading Bliss and Bending Time with a New Story
“Now widely anthologised, taught, and considered a paragon of modernist literature, ‘Bliss’ seems to prove what we have discovered as editors of NOON – that a…
Birnam Wood a Gripping Explosive Thriller
“It’s taken Eleanor Catton 10 years to follow up on her Booker Prize winning novel of 2013, The Luminaries. Fortunately, her latest offering, Birnam Wood, begins with a bang,…
Paris Opera Ballet’s Hannah O’Neill a Star
The Paris Opera Ballet has named New Zealand’s Hannah O’Neill as a new star dancer, a rarity as a non-French dancer in the world’s oldest ballet company, France 24…
Max Gimblett Shows in San Francisco: The Beginning of Time
New Yorker and New Zealander Max Gimblett has opened his latest exhibition The Beginning of Time at leading contemporary gallery Hosfelt in San Francisco. In…
How The Fall Nearly Sank Flying Nun
When the New Zealand indie label Flying Nun got a chance to record a live album by Manchester band the Fall, the tensions fraying the group almost destroyed the…
Melanie Lynskey Analyses Last of Us Character
When The Last of Us co-creator Craig Mazin pitched a role in the series to New Zealand-born actor Melanie Lynskey, he started with a bang: “He called me and…
Eleanor Catton’s Latest Has a Serious Message
It has been 10 years since New Zealander Eleanor Catton became, at 28, the youngest writer to be awarded the Booker prize, Lisa Allardice writes in a profile piece…
Our Musical Counterculture Like No Other
“Cut off from the ‘swinging’ innovations of 60s London, a generation of New Zealand musicians forged an underground scene that propelled the nation’s modern identity,” Garth Cartwright writes for…
Thomasin McKenzie Burns Up the Screen in Eileen
“What a strange and spellbinding psychological thriller has woven out of Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel, Eileen,” Hollywood Reporter reviewer David Rooney writes. “Rippling with sly humour and a…
On the Brilliance of Katherine Mansfield
“The Katherine Mansfield Memorial Garden is a peaceful, oblong-shaped park set in the midst of Thorndon, in Wellington. It is named after the city’s most famous daughter, the short…
The Artist Thomas Monckton Wonderfully Funny
“Thomas Monckton has been performing his circus-informed, clown-honed show The Artist since 2017, and it shows. This physical theatre performance, now in its final outing at Sydney Festival…
Musician Lachi McBride One to Watch
In a new Rolling Stone AU/NZ series, the magazine takes a look at some rising Aotearoa artists who are looking to impress in 2023 and beyond. It may still…
Gibbs Farm Alive with Gravity-Defying Sculptures
“The Gibbs Farm sculpture park collection brings together some staggering outdoor sculptures in North Auckland,” Ocula magazine reports.
“The vast majority of sculptures commissioned for the park – works by…
Simone Kessell Discusses Her Yellowjackets Role
In a Vanity Fair exclusive first look at adult Lottie Matthews (one of the Yellowjackets plane crash survivors), New Zealand-born actor Simone Kessell, 47, discusses where she’s been and…
Kimbra on the Ups and Downs of Fame
At just 21, the New Zealand musician Kimbra became famous for her part in smash-hit duet Somebody That I Used to Know. So what happened after? The Guardian’s Katie…
Why Katherine Mansfield Still Divides Opinion
In an edited extract from her foreword to Wild Places: Selected Stories by Katherine Mansfield, English author Helen Simpson asks: “How and why did Katherine Mansfield provoke such violent extremes…
Killer Doll Movie M3GAN Reviews Well in US
New Zealand director Gerard Johnstone’s latest film, the comedy horror M3GAN, is well reviewed in Variety, with critic Owen Gleiberman describing it as “creepy, preposterous and diverting”.
“Gemma (Allison Williams),…
Lynley Crosswell Creates Experiences in Victoria
New Zealander Lynley Crosswell took over as chief executive of Museums Victoria which includes the Melbourne Museum, Scienceworks, Immigration Museum, IMAX and the Royal Exhibition Building, in 2017. She…
The Beths Gifted Fans an Outstanding 2022 Album
In a round-up of the year’s most outstanding albums, the Boston Herald’s Jed Gottlieb includes Auckland indie band The Beths’ Expert in a Dying Field in his top five.
Other…
Mansfield Left Other Modernists in the Dust
“This year, we celebrated the annus mirabilis of literary modernism, whose greatest novel, Ulysses, and greatest poem, The Waste Land, both turned 100 … This year will see another modernist…
Jazz Pianist Mike Nock Relearns Seminal Album
At 82, the exuberant Christchurch-born, Sydney-based pianist Mike Nock has a lifetime of stories to share, and an abundance of insights to accompany them, Jessica Nicholas writes for The…
Violinist Bryony Gibson-Cornish Appointed at RCM
New Zealand-born violist Bryony Gibson-Cornish is one of five new professors appointed to the String Faculty at the Royal College of Music (RCM), London.
Gibson-Cornish, who performs as part of…
New Zealand’s Indy Forging Own Pop Path
Last month, a new indie pop star emerged – and she’s making the main character anthems of everyone’s dreams, according to Brittany Spanos writing for Rolling Stone. After nearly…
Dancer Lance Savali Never Misses a Beat
Lance Savali is a Wellington-born dancer, who shot to stardom after beginning his career with compatriot Parris Goebel’s dance crew, The Royal Family. Speaking to Complex AU, Savali chats…
Literary Review Looks at Mansfield and the Movies
“One of Katherine Mansfield’s defining characteristics was her restlessness, both personal and artistic: she was always most at home when on the move,” Claire Harman writes for the Literary…
Crafting Savage x Fenty with Parris Goebel
In-demand New Zealand choreographer Parris Goebel talks with Harper’s Bazaar about shaping the annual fashion spectacle Savage x Fenty and her longstanding creative friendship with Rihanna.
While Rihanna is the…
Artist Francis Upritchard Shows in Switzerland
New Zealand-born artist Francis Upritchard, 46, has had her first solo show in Switzerland at Biel’s Kunsthaus Pasquart, exhibiting over 100 works.
“Upritchard’s sculptures represent a striking amalgamation of fantasy…
Anything’s Possible for Choreographer Parris Goebel
From Justin Bieber to Rihanna, the entertainment industry’s elite all want to work with Parris Goebel, Grace O’Neill writes for Harper’s Bazaar Australia. The New Zealand-born choreographer seems to…
Cult Guitarist Roy Montgomery Records New Music
Beloved by the likes of Dry Cleaning and Grouper, New Zealand guitarist Roy Montgomery’s life has been hit by more than one tragedy, stories he traces in meditative instrumentals,…
Kate Newby’s NY Art Rose Through Cracks
In New York, on the Lower East Side, Laurel Gitlen gallery features two tile works that Kate Newby, the sculptor and ceramist, calls “murals”. Hung like paintings, they incorporate found…
Artist Hannah Jensen Reveals Magic in Carving Paint
Christchurch-based artist Hannah Jensen speaks to Forbes contributor Y-Jean Mun-Delsalle about painting in reverse, where all the layers of paint are applied first, then carved to reveal what’s in…
Juliette MacIver Writes Romping Rhyme for Kids
“‘When darkness falls in rising mist, Beware the gruesome grizzled grist.’ Watch little smiles light up when they get their hands on this fun-filled picture book featuring a school…
New Taika Waititi Film Stars Michael Fassbender
In 2001, the American Samoa football team were thrashed by Australia and recruited the services of a coach named Thomas Rongen in an attempt to reverse their on-the-field misfortunes….
Gemma New Makes Houston Symphony Debut
Gemma New has studied under conductors whose names are familiar well beyond the cloistered halls of classical music: Dudamel, Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas. The 35-year-old New Zealand native, recently…
Inside the Secretive Gloriavale Christian Community
Like many New Zealanders, Fergus Grady knew about the disturbing stories that were coming out of the Gloriavale Christian Community. This secretive group, located in one of the most…
Anna Fifield Returns to The Washington Post
For the past two years, Anna Fifield, 46, has been editor of the Dominion Post, New Zealand’s capital city newspaper. In January 2023, she returns to The Washington Post,…
Discovering New Zealand Crime Fiction
Waitara-born writer Jacqueline Bublitz discusses New Zealand’s “significant contribution to the cannon of popular crime fiction” and recommends four authors “you should be reading now” in an article for…
Amyas Connell-Designed Modernist UK Home for Sale
High and Over is no ordinary home. This legendary concrete, Y-shaped building, designed by New Zealand-born architect Amyas Connell, is the UK’s first modernist house, deemed to be “of…
Poūkahangatus by Tayi Tibble a New Yorker Fave
Wellington-born Tayi Tibble’s poetry collection Poūkahangatus has been included in the New Yorker’s ‘Best Books of 2022 So Far’ list.
The influential magazine writes: “Our editors and critics choose this…
Poet Hera Lindsay Bird Rides Wave of New Platforms
In an article about 30-year-old Russian-born British poet Arch Hades, “the highest paid living poet of all time” and the “new meta verse”, Financial Times Baya Simons mentions Wellingtonian…
Tayi Tibble’s Poūkahangatus Reviewed in New Yorker
Wellington poet Tayi Tibble’s award-winning first collection Poūkahangatus has been described by The New Yorker magazine as “smart, sexy … fanciful and dramatic”.
“This collection’s title poem, which describes itself…
Titan to Tachyons’ Sally Gates Talks Surrealism
New Zealand-born composer Sally Gates, a member of New York experimental metal band Titan to Tachyons, has been described by renowned musician John Zorn as “a powerful young…
Studio Kind of Green Performs for Scotsman Sessions
With the performing arts sector still impacted by the pandemic, The Scotsman is commissioning a series of short video performances from artists all around Scotland and releasing them online, with…
Inside Emilia Wickstead’s Elegant West London Home
With a fittingly fastidious approach to interiors, Auckland-born designer Emilia Wickstead, 38, brings her signature blend of proportion, colour and classicism to a family home in West London, finds…
