In the Mood for China Girl
The Guardian recommends David Bowie’s China Girl video, featuring New Zealand model Geeling Ng, as one of seven music video recommendations “for every mood.” “Ng plays the China girl in scenes that toy with…
News of New Zealanders via Global Media
Now to the Cutting Room
Two of Hollywood’s most anticipated — and most expensive — forthcoming movies have wrapped production in New Zealand. Shot together, a pair of films based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy book The Hobbit have…
Taking Australia by Storm
Twelve years on since their television debut on Wellington’s regional TV station, the Flight of the Conchords, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, haven’t changed. McKenzie still looks perplexed and Clement still looks…
Upritchard Pose at V&A
A work by New Zealand artist Francis Upritchard is part of the Britain Creates 2012: Fashion + Art Collision exhibition on at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum through 29 July. “An old…
This Brother to Memorialise
Former champion rower Rob Hamill’s film Brother Number One, which tells the story of his brother Kerry Hamill and two friends killed in Cambodia after accidentally sailing there in 1978, was among…
Saving the Arctic at all Costs
New Zealand-born actress Lucy Lawless, who was recently in Rio de Janeiro to launch Greenpeace’s Save the Arctic campaign alongside Sir Richard Branson, talks to the Guardian’s Susanna Rustin about her latest…
New Album with Swagger
Gin Wigmore featured on MTV Australia’s ‘Local Produce’ June special. Wigmore talked to MTV about how she got her start, her plans for the year ahead and her latest album inspiration. “Gravel & Wine…
McKellen Show Just for New Zealand
“For the past decade he has been best known as the X-Men antihero Magneto or The Lord of the Rings wizard Gandalf, but in more than a dozen sold-out performances in New Zealand, where…
Mr Fix-it in the Running
Arguably the best-placed candidate to head News Corporation’s new publishing company is New Zealander Tom Mockridge, the safe pair of hands that Rupert Murdoch parachuted in to lead News International out of the phone-hacking…
Radio New Zealand Wins Gold
New Zealand’s top ranking radio station, Radio New Zealand, has won gold at the 2012 New York Festival Radio Awards for their Christchurch earthquake documentary, Broken River. Broken River received the top…
Possums and Their Strings Hit US
New Zealand bluegrass group The Johnny Possum Band have announced tour dates for their 2012 tour of the United States. “The Johnny Possum Band has been delivering their own brand of alt…
Meeting Porgy in Cincinnati
Dunedin opera singer Jonathan Lemalu takes the lead role in Cincinnati Opera’s production of Porgy and Bess, which runs through 8 July in Music Hall. During rehearsals, Lemalu tells Cincinnati.com about the character Porgy:…
From Meek Geek to King of Cool
New Zealand comedian Rhys Darby, 38, is taking his latest live show, the award-winning This Way to Spaceship, to Leeds on 14 July as part of his first UK tour. “Only Rhys can figure…
Niccol Adapts Meyer Novel
New Zealand-born director Andrew Niccol, 48, has adapted Twilight author Stephenie Meyer’s The Host, which stars The Lovely Bones’ actress Saoirse Ronan as Melanie Stryder, one of the last people fighting against an invading…
On Shortlist for Dream Win
Outrageous Fortune actor Tammy Davis’ short film Ebony Society has been picked as a semi-finalist for the first international Your Film Festival. The competition is described as a global hunt to find…
Prize for Elegance and Economy
Wellington author Emma Martin has won the £5,000 Commonwealth short story prize for Two Girls in a Boat, which chair of judges Bernardine Evaristo described as “gorgeous, elegant and spare”. The story was chosen,…
Wellington Hosts Hobbit
The world premiere of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will take place at Wellington’s Embassy Theatre on 28 November two weeks ahead of the film’s release on 14 December. Based…
Not for Children
Aucklander Chelsea Nikkel a.k.a. pianist and vocalist Princess Chelsea, is the Guardian’s recommended ‘New Band’ for 1 June. “Princess Chelsea is the solo project of Nikkel, a classically trained pianist and former…
Rising Star Enamours
Wellington-born singer Willy Moon “is quickly establishing himself as one of today’s more fascinating and engaging pop stars,” according to music, style and culture magazine DIY. “Ever since he burst on to…
Harnessing Light in Venice
Port Chalmers-born sculptor, photographer and installation artist Bill Culbert will represent New Zealand at the 2013 Venice Biennale. The e-flux announcement for the appointment says that Culbert was born in 1935 and describes him…
Hall’s Racy Debut Feature
New Zealander Regan Hall is the director and producer of Fast Girls, a new film about the UK athletics team. Directing his first feature film, Hall was determined to find young actresses…
She’s Got the Look
New Zealand musician Kimbra “has the potential to be like Prince,” according to Warner Brothers Records chairman Rob Cavallo. “That’s how strong her musicality is,” Cavallo says. “Kimbra’s a real artist, and I envision…
Forrest Family Mesmerises
“Emily Perkins’ new novel opens with the making of a home movie and retains the feel of one, full of fragmentary impressions; momentary visual clarity mixed with the jumpy blurrings…
Shakespeare Goes Camping
New Zealand-shot film Romeo and Juliet: A Love Song, directed by Tim van Dammen, is showing at Cannes, “asking buyers ‘where art thou?’ in the Marche du Film.” Van Dammen’s version promises trashy trailer…
Riotously Vibrant at Saatchi Gallery
Former Matangi, Waikato resident and mother of two of New Zealand’s richest men, Ana Tzarev, is exhibiting her riotously colourful large-scale canvases at London’s Saatchi Gallery in conjunction with the…
No Fake Jamaican Accents, Thanks
Wellington eight-piece band The Black Seeds – described by Clash Magazine as, “one of the best live reggae acts on the planet” – play the fourth Perisher Snowy Mountains of…
Funky Cuts for Rolling Stone
“Inventive New Zealand singer-songwriter Kimbra stopped by the Rolling Stone studio to play a few funky cuts off her experimental pop debut LP Vows.” “After impressing with her intense live looping technique, she talked…
From a New Perspective
Christchurch-born singer Bic Runga, 36, has released her first album in five years, Belle. Runga, who is currently on tour in Australia, tells the Illawarra Mercury’s Kate Walsh that since her 1997…
Owls Resonates Fifty Years On
Janet Frame’s debut novel, Owls Do Cry, released by New Zealand’s Pegasus Press in 1957, is the Frankfurter Allgemeine’s ‘Book of the Week’, reviewed by Sabine Doering. Doering writes that in the novel the…
On Set with One Beautiful Caster
New Zealand-born actress Alice Englert, the daughter of Academy Award-winning film director Jane Campion, stars in Warner Bros.’ supernatural thriller Beautiful Creatures, a film adapted from the first book of the Caster Chronicles series,…
Diversity Under the Gold Coast Sun
Controversial New Zealand reality television show The GC, about young Maori living on Australia’s Gold Coast, has prompted comparisons to America’s Jersey Shore, and heated debate about whether the show was seen as a…
Arrival Delights Korean Audience
Award-winning play, The Arrival, performed by New Zealand’s Red Leap Theatre and based on Shaun Tan’s graphic novel, “fascinated” a Korean audience at the LG Arts Center in Seoul recently. The Arrival,…
Headrushing Pop Fusion
Ladyhawke’s May concert at the Ruby Lounge in Manchester is reviewed in the Guardian by Dave Simpson who says that “the verdict from the front row is a shouted: ‘This is good…
Fashionable Favourites
Wellington band The Black Seeds latest album Dust and Dirt featured at No 4 in Deutsch Vogue’s May Playlist. “Reggae from New Zealand?” the publication questions, “Yes,” mentioning the “airy” title track, sure to…
Art the Lifeblood on Waiheke
“‘There’s something about this stretch of water that changes everything,’ sculptor Chris Bailey says, gesturing towards the Hauraki Gulf. ‘It has an almost cleansing effect.’” “Clambering out of Bailey’s cluttered ute, we…
International Success Story
New Zealand filmmaker Anna Cottrell has been filming the story of Ethiopian refugee Terefe Ejigu since he was 16, when newly enrolled at Wellington College he began running. Ejigu’s talent as a runner was…
Making Records Trumps Study
Kimbra started writing songs at the age of 10 as a “natural way to express myself as a kid” she tells Mel Evans of the Sunday Magazine. “It wasn’t until I started listening to…
Short Sequence, Sharp Response
A 10-minute sequence from Peter Jackson’s forthcoming two-part Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit has been shown to conference goers at the annual CinemaCon in Las Vegas. The conference featured a presentation from…
Trojan War Maori Style
The director of New Zealand’s version of Troilus and Cressida Rachel House explains how she put Maori culture at the heart of Shakespeare’s Trojan tragedy. Thirty-seven theatre companies from around the world are presenting…
Top of the Pops
New Zealand singer Kimbra, 22, featuring on Belgian-Australian Gotye’s single Somebody That I Used To Know, has made it to the top of the American Billboard top 100. It is the first time a…
Acting Against Bullying
Eighteen-year-old founder of Two Face Drama Charlizza Harris from Lower Hutt was one of 33 teenage entrepreneurs honoured at the first annual Dare to Dream awards dinner in New York City on…
Illuminating North America
The first of the two-day New Zealand in L.A. festival at the city’s REDCAT theatre featured eight chamber and solo works by New Zealand composers and renowned performer on Maori instruments, Richard Nunns. Los…
Coffee Without the Schnauzer
Berlin-based New Zealand author Sarah Quigley pays a visit to Antipodes coffee shop in the German capital’s area of Prenzlauer Berg where NZEdge web editor Jane Nye and partner Paul Milne, both…
Emotional Provocateur
Auckland singer-songwriter Sam RB’s song Stand Tall has been chosen from more than 300 entries as the theme of the New Zealand contingent at the London Olympics. The New Zealand Olympic Committee invited songwriters…
Loving the Vibes in the Bay
Logan Bell of Hamilton reggae band Katchafire talked to the Examiner’s Alyssa Tomfohrde ahead of their San Francisco show at the prestigious Mezzanine venue. “From humble beginnings ‘jamming’ in a garage, Katchafire is a…
Harpooning Hearts in Vegas
Auckland jazz singer Sarah Frances Johnston, 21, is this month beginning a two-month residency performing at Oscar’s Beef, Booze and Broads at the Plaza in Las Vegas. Johnston, who began acting at age 11…
Exposure to Chelsea Crowd
An exhibition of 25 New Zealand artists is on at New York’s Agora Gallery from 24 April through 15 May. “‘Made in New Zealand’ presents a fresh perspective on a country that provides continual…
New American Sci-fi Role
Oscar-nominated actress Keisha Castle-Hughes, 22, who starred in Niki Caro’s smash hit film Whale Rider, takes the role of Priya in an American sci-fi pilot called Rewind. Castle-Hughes will play a “behavioral anthropologist who…
Stripes Under NZ lights
Early White Stripes footage from a concert the pair performed at Auckland’s Kings Arms Tavern in 2000 — some of the earliest footage of the band outside of the United States — will feature…
Recommended Listening
The release of Ladyhawke’s second album Anxiety is one of Guardian reviewer’s Alex Petridis’ “top picks of the spring.” Petridis writes: “The second album by this self-styled ‘pop superwoman creating radio-friendly songs with a single bound’ — aka…
Big Screen, Big Bucks
The local screen industry contributed $3 billion in gross revenues to the New Zealand economy in 2011, an increase of 4 per cent over 2010, fueled by a boost in feature film production, according…
Lye’s primitive symptoms
Animation film Tuslava (1929), created by Christchurch-born artist Len Lye, is part of a an exhibition entitled ‘Animism’ on from 26 April through 28 July at Berlin’s Haus der Kulturen der Welt. The exhibition examines the…
Entering The Pacific Century
“Characterized by initiative and aggressiveness combined with a chivalric ethos, a respect for the intellect, and an impatience with rank and hierarchy, New Zealand’s martial virtues have imbued Kiwis’ sense of fairness and decency…
Conducting Lifelong Love
New Zealand-born conductor Andrew Sewell is in contention to replace the current Illinois Symphony Orchestra’s music director and is profiled ahead of his Springfield audition in the State Journal-Register. Sewell, who lives in Wisconsin, previously…
Lynch Pin Performs Wonder
Originally from Auckland, SF Jazz Collective bassist Matt Penman studied at Boston’s Berklee College of Music before relocating to New York in 1995. Penman, 37, is a longtime lynch pin of the Collective, which…
Lo-fi Musical Shift
New Zealand chanteuse Ladyhawke, 32, talks to Vogue Australia about her new album Anxiety and the musical shift between this recording and her self-titled debut. She’s progressed from the synth-heavy 1980s to the gritty guitars of the 90s….
