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by RNZ
Perlina Lau hosts a weekly show about creativity and culture in Aotearoa.
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- 5 days ago21 min
Isabel Haarhaus: Feral and Other Stories, 12 years in the making
When Isabel Haarhaus got Tracey Slaughter's comment comparing her book to Katherine Mansfield, she was staying in the house next door to Mansfield's in Wellington, looking out on Mansfield's garden. Her debut collection Feral and Other Stories, from Otago University Press, took 10 to 12 years. It began in a writers' group of six women who were, in her words, pretty ruthless with each other. Isabel arrived on the East Coast at 10 speaking only Dutch and German, and soon worked out that being a fast runner was a currency all of its own. She explains why her parents chose nuclear-free New Zealand, why she reads every draft aloud, and why her characters talk about hard things in a flippant voice. It's how girls and women have kept going.
- 5 days ago6 min
Josie Hunter-Annand: Taranaki gets its first Fringe festival
The new Taranaki Fringe Festival is on in New Plymouth until 15 November, with comedy, theatre, cabaret, dance and circus, and international acts alongside local talent. Artistic director Josie Hunter-Annand talks with Perlina about the festival highlights and the Evolution Dome where the shows are held. She also covers the work going into schools, why they chose a fringe over a general arts festival, and how the region has reacted.
- 5 days ago12 min
Queen Noveen: the live voice of God behind award shows
When you hear an unseen voice introducing stars at an award show, it's usually a real person sitting backstage, or in a trailer outside, reading live. Queen Noveen is one of those voices. She fell into the work through acting classes and booked the MTV Video Music Awards in her first year with an agency. She tells Perlina Lau how she handles a script that keeps changing during the broadcast, why a mistake has to sound like a normal sentence, and why she skips cheese on show day but keeps green apples and Lay's chips handy. Social media has become her CV, and it brought calls from the 49ers, NASCAR and the NFL. Her favourite gig was the 2022 SAG Awards, where she introduced Selena Gomez and then hurried past Meryl Streep to meet her.
- 5 days ago19 min
The Big Screen: Dan Slevin on Wicker, You Can See Everything and Godzilla Minus Zero
Dan Slevin reviews three new releases. In Wicker, Olivia Colman plays a lonely fisherwoman whose basket maker (Peter Dinklage) builds her a husband from wicker, played by Alexander Skarsgård, and his arrival shakes up the whole village. You Can See Everything is Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's documentary about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, filmed with her and her family during the 34 days before she went to prison for fraud. Godzilla Minus Zero is Takashi Yamazaki's follow-up to the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One. It's set two years later, as a recovering Japan is attacked by a new three-headed monster.
- 5 days ago19 min
Maaka Pohatu: human jukebox heads Back to the 80s
Maaka Pohatu's nickname is the human jukebox, and Perlina Lau puts it to the test with a quickfire round of choruses, from Al Green to Peter Andre. He's one of the singers in Back to the 80s with the Auckland Philharmonia, and he'll be performing Tears for Fears, Simply Red and Billy Joel backed by what he calls a giant wall of sound. Maaka talks about growing up with te reo Maori in Dunedin until Sesame Street got in the way, and why the original Modern Maori Quartet now only gets together a few times a year. He remembers a school student at ATC's Macbeth yelling Macduff's lines along with him like it was a rock concert, and how he landed Sergeant Maaka in Wellington Paranormal without an audition.
- 5 days ago6 min
Cheryl Scott: ten years of opening Gisborne’s She Sheds
The She Shed Tour began on a morning beach walk. Cheryl Scott knew plenty of women with she sheds along Gisborne's northern beaches, and when out-of-town visitors were surprised by how many there were, she wondered if people would pay to see inside. The first year had six to eight venues and about 200 visitors. For its tenth year next Sunday there are 14 venues across Wainui, Okitu and Makorori, and 1500 tickets are selling fast. Cheryl, a mosaic artist, explains how the day works, the frantic tidying before the gates open, and this year's dress-up theme: wear a piece of art, or be one. The artists also hold their own tour the day before, so they don't miss out.
- 1 weeks ago11 min
Karl Puschmann: It Gets Worse, Dead Ahead and Stick
Karl Puschmann joins Perlina with his November TV picks. He starts with It Gets Worse, out on Neon and narrated by Zadie Smith. Three university friends in their twenties face eviction in London, and a hole one of them punches in the wall sets off the trouble. Karl calls it sharp and very funny, with plenty of cringe, and gives a content warning because sex is a big part of the show. Dead Ahead season two starts from 3 November, and Karl says the first episode is a cracking start. Miriama Smith plays a high-powered Maori lawyer whose ancestors come back to guide her, and Karl says it works like The Sixth Sense without the jump scares. Stick season two arrives on Apple TV on 4 November, and Karl says it has eased off the heavy-handed drama and gone back to the golf. Later in the month, Yellowjackets' final season arrives on 21 November, Blade Runner 2099 lands on Prime Video on 25 November, and 12 12 12 on Apple TV puts Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan in a European heist.
- 1 weeks ago22 min
Shane Cotton and Anthony Byrt: a decade of conversations behind their new book
Painter Shane Cotton and writer Anthony Byrt talk about their book, a mix of history, biography and personal storytelling rather than a conventional art monograph. Byrt quotes his line that Cotton has been walking backwards into his own future for over 30 years. The two met in Brisbane in 2013 and spent the next decade in conversation, including at Cotton's studio in Palmerston North. Cotton grew up in Upper Hutt, drove trucks for his dad, and then went to art school in Christchurch, to the surprise of his family. He talks about his recurring image of preserved heads, and says there is something unsettled about them.
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About Culture 101
Perlina Lau hosts a weekly show about creativity and culture in Aotearoa.
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