Michala Banas Gets Her Bogan On
Acclaimed actor Wellington-born Michala Banas, 38, had never been to a speedway before being cast as foul-mouthed and tough as nails Amber in the hit ABC comedy Upper Middle Bogan. “That world was totally new…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Keisha Castle-Hughes in Negotiations for FBI Crime-Drama ‘Manifesto’
New Zealand actress Keisha Castle-Hughes is in negotiations for Discovery Channel’s high-profile FBI drama Manifesto, as reported in Deadline. Castle-Hughes “will play Tabby, a street agent who partners with FBI special agent Jim…
Producer Kamandi Releases New Track The Mould
New Zealand-raised producer Kamandi, aka Tyrone Frost, “has been changing the game across the globe”, according to EDM-culture blog Magnetic Magazine, who caught up with the artist to talk about his influences and his…
Singer Kimbra Teams up with Wrangler
New Zealand Grammy award-winning recording artist Kimbra is already taking the music world by storm, but she’s also dabbling in the fashion world teaming up with Wrangler. Marie Claire UK caught up with her…
Crowded House Play to Adoring Fans in Sydney
“The decision as to when to call time on a band must be a truly wretched one,” Alexandra Spring writes for the Guardian. “, Crowded House returned to the place where they called…
Ora Gallery NYC Hosts Kiwi Artist Pop-Up Store
New York based Ora Gallery, established by New Zealander Giarna Te Kanawa, will be hosting pop-up holiday store – ‘Ema Frost & Friends, an Artisan Market of New Zealand Creatives’…
Hera Lindsay Bird Takes Poetry Beyond the Bookstore
In New Zealand, poetry’s latest “it girl”, Hera Lindsay Bird, is amassing a semi-cult online following for her smart, sassy and explicit takes on everything from female sexuality to Friends. Bird, along with contemporaries…
How Pacific Islanders Helped Moana Find Its Way
Fine attention to detail and constant feedback from John Musker and Ron Clements, the writer-director team behind Moana’s cultural advisory group The Oceanic Story Trust, has helped shape the Disney film on every level, Vanity…
Christie’s Imogen Kerr Making Waves in Art World
To mark Christie’s 250th anniversary, Luxury London met with New Zealander Imogen Kerr who, along with Briton Kate Flitcroft, represents the new generation of female specialists at the renowned auction house making a name…
Peter Jackson to Produce Sci-Fi Series Adaptation
Oscar-winning director Peter Jackson will produce an adaptation of British author Philip Reeve’s steampunk series Mortal Engines, the script which the New Zealander has also co-written. Another Academy Award winner, Christian Rivers, Jackson’s long-term collaborator…
NZ Folk Singer Who’ll Put A Spell On You
“New Zealand’s Aldous Harding –who was recently recommended by Charlotte Church in the Guardian” is “a folk artist whose performances strike that rare balance between fragility and full-blown possession,” writes Kate Hutchinson in an…
Violinist Benjamin Baker Wins NY Music Prize
Violinist Benjamin Baker, 26, has been named one of four first prizewinners at the 2016 Young Concert Artists (YCA) International Auditions in New York. The four artists were selected from a pool of nearly 200…
World Fantasy Award for Novelist Anna Smaill
Author Anna Smaill’s debut The Chimes won best novel at the 2016 World Fantasy Awards in Ohio, United States, a “wonderful honour”, the Victoria University lecturer said. “I’m really happy. The authors on the shortlist…
Heavy Metal Drummer Reprints WW2 Book
New Zealand-born author and musician Lawrence Paterson has recently reprinted his fourth book, Hitler’s Grey Wolves: U-Boats In The Indian Ocean, which originally came out in 2004 and explores the forty German submarines that…
Tape Face Captivates in Milton Keynes
Fresh from a stint on America’s Got Talent, New Zealand comedian Sam Wills, aka Tape Face, recently preformed in Milton Keynes, delivering “a captivating set of skits that the audience on stage and…
NZ String Quartet Communicate a Culture
If you were to listen to the New Zealand String Quartet (NZSQ) with your eyes closed, could you tell that they were from halfway around the world? The Hamilton Spectator classical music writer Leonard Turnevicius…
Lisa Harrow’s Coriolanus Role Lauded
A New York Times reviewer describes Auckland-born actor Lisa Harrow’s performance as “superb” in her role as Volumnia in Red Bull Theatre’s “gripping new production” of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, on now at New…
New Ghost in The Shell Behind the Scenes Released
“Come 2017, Hollywood veteran Scarlett Johansson will be headlining Paramount’s lavish Ghost in the Shell movie as The Major, an elite cyborg enforcer who spearheads a task force known as Section 9,” writes Michael…
Melanie Lynskey Sticking to the Indies
Melanie Lynskey, star of the latest Duplass brothers film, Rainbow Time, talks to Metro US about indies, acting for friends and being chummy with the most evil people in the world: film critics. “I feel…
Greg Semu Exhibition on at SCAF in Sydney
Auckland-born curator and independent indigenous researcher Greg Semu is the featured artist in an exhibition on at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) in Sydney. “Collection+: Greg Semu” is a major exhibition which contextualises…
Filmmaker Gregory King’s UFO Wins in Toronto
New Zealand-born director Gregory King has won Best Short Drama for his 2014 film UFO at this year’s imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival held in Toronto. King said from Berlin, where he lives, that the…
Connan Mockasin’s Soft Hair Swampy Psychedelia
Connan Mockasin “a recluse from New Zealand” and Sam Eastgate of UK band Late of the Pier have teamed up to form Soft Hair, “a reverie of swampy psychedelia”, writes NME journalist Ben Homewood in a…
Gunn Returns to the Bush
Award-winning novelist and short story writer Kirsty Gunn returns to the New Zealand of her childhood in Going Bush (Sylph Editions) and My Katherine Mansfield Project (New York Review Books). Gunn, who lives in…
What Sets Conductor Holly Mathieson Apart
Several factors set Holly Mathieson apart, according to the Herald Scotland. Mathieson, 35, who has just made her debut as assistant conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, comes from the Antipodes, for starters,…
Exhibit Celebrates Chinese Perseverance in NZ
Chinese New Zealander sociologist Phoebe Li has curated a photo exhibition in Beijing about Chinese migrants’ 170-year history in our country called, “Recollection of A Distant Shore: A Photographic Introduction to the History of…
Artist Louise McRae a Star of the Other Fair
Former graphic designer and professional equestrian rider, New Zealander Louise McRae, made her Australian debut at Sydney’s recent Other Art Fair with eight new works of recycled timber compositions. Gallery owner Roslyn Oxley said McRae…
Lucy Lawless on the Evolution of Fake Blood
New Zealand-born Lucy Lawless of Spartacus, Battlestar Galactica and Xena: Warrior Princess fame says she has noted major advances in props and fake blood since she began her career. “The technology now is so good….
Innovative Oddities Abound at Gibbs Farm
Truly one of New Zealand’s best-kept secret gems, according to travel site Atlas Obscura, is the gigantic sculpture garden known as Gibbs Farm. In 1991, New Zealand-born entrepreneur and art collector Alan Gibbs purchased a…
Sam Neill: From Heartthrob To Vintner
Sam Neill of New Zealand’s Central Otago winery Two Paddocks, who is better known as an actor told the Financial Times’ Jancis Robinson that he “puts all his energy “into making beautiful…
Holly Mathieson Conducts Illinois Philharmonic
New Zealand-born Holly Mathieson, who has been named assistant conductor for the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, was at the helm of the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) for a recent concert at Governors State University…
Kon Dimopoulos Painting Chattanooga’s Trees Blue
Konstantin Dimopoulos is a New Zealand artist heading up an environmental art installation in Chattanooga, Tennessee, titled “The Blue Trees,” which Dimopoulos says is about bringing attention to the plight of old-growth forests around…
Simon Phillips Has the Knack for Musical Theatre
In a wide-ranging career spanning several continents, which to date has seen him employed as artistic director by two Australian state theatre companies and awarded for his direction of theatre and opera, New Zealand-born…
The Naked and Famous Match Sound to Vision
The New Zealand-born, Los Angeles-based group The Naked and Famous are pairing a striking visual story with their new album Simple Forms, which was released this month via their own label Somewhat Damaged. Each of…
Standout Commercials for Cheil’s Malcolm Poynton
Global chief creative officer at Cheil Worldwide, New Zealand-born Malcolm Poynton, talks to Adweek in Las Vegas about the “lasting genius” of the “legendary” Dove Campaign for Real Beauty and some of his other…
Musician Roy Montgomery Returns to the Fold
Following a decade long hiatus, Christchurch-based musician Roy Montgomery is about to release a new album – a four LP box set titled RMHQ. Featured in the latest issue of The Wire, Montgomery explains…
Jennifer Flay’s 2016 FIAC Unifies Paris
Steering this year’s edition of Parisian contemporary art fair Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain (FIAC) through a period of significant change and development was New Zealand-born gallerist Jennifer Flay. Flay who was FIAC’s artistic director from…
Recreation of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre Built with Shipping Containers
“Staying true to the design of the original Globe Theatre in London, the Container Globe – a proposal to reconstruct a version of Shakespeare’s famous Globe Theatre with shipping containers – sees…
Top of the Lake – Series With Star Location
“Across the globe and across generations”, there are stories with “settings as important as any character with dialogue,” according to an article in IndieWire. New Zealand’s Top of the Lake is one…
Frances Harrison Recounts Flipside of French Dream
Life in France is not always la belle vie that expats had hoped for when making the “dream move”. New Zealand-born Frances Harrison, English teacher and author of Follow My Heart: Risking it all…
Lawrence Arabia’s Breezy Absolute Truth
Included in a roundup of the best Australian LPs that might have passed you by in the past months, (the Guardian includes a caveat) is Christchurch-born Lawrence Arabia’s latest, Absolute Truth. “The lyrics of musician
Jazz Musician Matt Penman Rearranges Miles Davis
The SFJAZZ Collective, a United States-based jazz ensemble, which originated in 2004, has thrived with shifting arrangements. The Collective, which includes New Zealand-born bassist Matt Penman (seated far left), has a lineup that has…
Tenor Simon O’Neill Sings Wagner’s Praises
One word not often associated with Richard Wagner, the 19th-century composer of high romantic opera, is “cool” – yet this is the adjective repeatedly invoked by New Zealander Simon O’Neill, 44, who made his…
Author Joan Druett Conjures up the Seven Seas
If you love stories of sailing, adventure, the vast Pacific, navigation, or other such things Marianas Variety writer B C Cook wants to introduce you to one of his favourite authors, New Zealand maritime…
Francis Upritchard’s Frieze Show a Tour de Force
New Zealand-born Francis Upritchard’s solo presentation at this year’s Art Frieze Fair in London at the booth of London dealer Kate MacGarry, was the “best and most absorbing” of the exhibits, according to the…
Thomston Making Unashamed Pop Music
There’s a tendency for males making pop with any sort of prefix to skew themselves towards less mainstream channels. That’s exactly why 20-year-old New Zealander Thomston could be the next best popstar, according to…
Flying Nun History with Pictures
Following a review of founder Roger Shepherd’s memoir In Love With These Times: My Life With Flying Nun Records, Wire magazine has published the stories behind some of the photographs included in the book. The…
Shifting Sands take Gorgeous Guitar Pop to US
Dunedin psychedelic pop trio The Shifting Sands were encouraged to tour the United States by a big fan, American singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten. Etten said: “I fell in love with The Shifting Sands music a…
Why 2016’s Exciting New Americana is Antipodean
New Zealanders Nadia Reid and Marlon Williams are part of “a bold young Oceanic Americana cohort” according to the Guardian’s Laura Snapes. A new wave of young New Zealand and Australian-based artists are giving Nashville’s…
Kimbra’s New Single Sweet Relief Praised
New Zealand pop singer Kimbra, 26, has released a new single, the first since the release of her sophomore album The Golden Echo in 2013. “Sweet Relief” is “bloody excellent,” according to online music…
Carrie Beehan Premieres “Ass In The Middle”
“An artist in the truest sense of the word, Carrie Beehan is now gearing up to unveil her latest sonic self and narrative,” as reported in article in GroundSounds. The New Zealander…
Katherine Mansfield’s Inscrutability Intrigues
In the acclaimed biography La Vida Breve di Katherine Mansfield, written by famed Italian literary critic and author Pietro Citati, the New Zealand-born writer’s stories are described as having the special quality of “distance”….
The Rehearsal Adaptation a Team Effort
The spirit of collaboration runs deep in Alison Maclean’s The Rehearsal, the Canadian filmmaker’s often ambitious and hearteningly daring big screen adaptation of Man Booker Prize-winning author New Zealander Eleanor Catton’s first novel of…
No Caller ID Makes Hollywood’s Screamfest Lineup
Slasher film No Caller I.D., which was shot in one night and on a three-figure budget, has been accepted into Hollywood’s prestigious Screamfest Horror Film Festival. Best friends Guy Pigden and Harley Neville shot the…
What We Do In The Shadows – Mockumentary You Need to Watch
Kiwi mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows has been included in a list of mockumentaries you will need to watch in an article on Vice. What We Do in the Shadows, directed,…
Fis Creating Eco-Conscious Electronics
“Before I was producing music electronically I was a drummer, and I really loved just trying to stop thinking and just play rhythm,” New Zealand-born producer Oliver Peryman aka Fis tells The…
Paul Shanta Dealing to Sydney’s Graffiti
New Zealand-born artist Paul Shanta has come up with a colourful solution to the bad graffiti problem littering the streetscapes of Sydney suburb Campsie. Shanta is offering to stencil over the ugly graffiti with…
