Bugler Ian Levien performs in front of Regan Gentry's Learning Your Stripes mural. Photo / Auckland Council
Bugler Ian Levien performs in front of Regan Gentry's Learning Your Stripes mural. Photo / Auckland Council
From music, to dance, art, theatre, museum events, film and even Minecraft - a nation unites in remembering our soldiers, heroes and families 100 years on from the Great War
It's not hard to miss that this year is an important Anzac anniversary: 100 years since our troops landed on that wee peninsula in Turkey. It's impressive to see how engaged -- and engaging - commemorations have become.
As well as the important formal dawn parades and services, there are some terrific creative ways you can become part of the commemorations.
Gallipoli in Minecraft
If there's one way to bring Gallipoli into this century, it's through gaming. Students from Alfriston College have collaborated with the museum to recreate the landscape of Gallipoli in 1915.
Kids can explore the campaign while they're immersed in playing the online game, plus there's an exhibition of the students' work and the collection items that inspired them. Exhibition runs from Friday to October 11; the Gallipoli in Minecraft world is downloadable from Anzac Day.
Online Cenotaph
The Ministry for Culture and Heritage has updated the
with new content from Auckland Libraries alongside the memories of New Zealand's servicemen and women. Now anyone can add information, photographs and documents into personal records, and even lay digital poppies.
Look out for the special mobile unit travelling Auckland with the He Pou Aroha Community Cenotaph.
A tribute concert from this community orchestra features orchestral favourites, spoken word, wartime songs and commemorative pieces from Brahms, Gary Daverne's Gallipoli Rhapsody for Trumpet, tunes from the trenches and more.
Tomorrow, 2.30pm. Aotea Centre, 50 Mayoral Drive, Auckland
NZ Symphony Orchestra In a Transtasman first, orchestras in New Zealand and Sydney mark Anzac with near simultaneous world performances of two world premieres by New Zealand and Australian composers. New Zealand composer Michael Williams was commissioned to write a new work for the NZSO, Symphony No1 Letters from the Front (read about it on page 11) while the Sydney Symphony Orchestra has a piece for choir and orchestra, Australian composer James Ledger's War Music.
The NZSO will perform War Music with the New Zealand Youth Choir -- poignantly, the singers are around the same age as some of the soldiers who fought in Gallipoli. Auckland Town Hall, Thursday, 7pm. nzso.co.nz
Salute to the Anzacs The Royal Regiment of New Zealand Artillery's band performs a free concert at Titirangi War Memorial Hall.
Tomorrow, 2.30pm. RSVP on (09) 440 7636 or tracy.haggo@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz
The New Zealand Dance Company's Rotunda In live brass band and raw contemporary dance, Rotunda celebrates the themes of courage, community and loss, and peace.
Composer Don McGlashan and choreographer Shona McCullagh integrate shadow play, mace-twirling and waiata with dynamic dance theatre and music from North Shore Brass. New Zealand composers Gareth Farr, John Ritchie, John Psathas and McGlashan wove together traditional hymns with contemporary brass. The company then tours the show to Australia. ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre. Thursday to Saturday. Tickets start from $20.
West City Band The band performs music by John Williams, Frank Tcheli, David Maslanka and Alfred Reed in this tribute concert. The West City Concert Band has performed at the Titirangi RSA Anzac service for years.
Sunday, April 26, 2pm, Mt Albert War Memorial Hall. Afternoon tea will be available.
Royal New Zealand Ballet Salute Later in the year, the Royal New Zealand Ballet's annual contemporary show Salute has created works to mark the centenary -- one by Andrew Simmons and the other by Neil Ieremia, plus a performance of legendary choreographer Jiri Kylian's Soldiers' Mass.
Joseph Skelton performs in the Royal New Zealand Ballet' Salute, four dance works to mark the centenary of World War 1. Photo / Supplied
Hamilton, June 10; Bruce Mason Theatre Takapuna, June 13-14; Aotea Centre June 17-20.
In pictures and film
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Pump House has a special screening of epic war film
All Quiet on the Western Front
, adapted from the German infantryman Erich Maria Remarque's best-selling 1929 novel.
It was one of the first to show the traumatic effects of trench warfare on soldiers, a powerful anti-war testament.
The evening includes updates on the Kennedy Park WWII Preservation Trust's restoration of the bunkers and gun emplacements of Castor Bay. Thursday, 6.30pm, Pump House Theatre, Killarney Park, Takapuna. pumphouse.co.nz
Momento
Some 18,166 servicemen and women were lost between August 1914 and 1918. Nearly every tiny town in Australia or New Zealand has a memorial to those who were killed, erected by the families to memorialise their boys (and girls).
Documentary photographers Laurence Aberhart, Allan McDonald and John Miller have created three very different views on war and memorialising it in their show, Memento. Pukekohe's Franklin Arts Centre shows these photographs alongside local World War I memorabilia and imagery.
New Zealand Steel Gallery, Franklin Arts Centre, 12 Massey Ave, Pukekohe. Opens Friday, 12-2pm, until May 16. War veteran Linton Stewart hosts a talk: "After Gallipoli", Saturday, May 2, at 2pm. On Facebook.
Auckland Art Gallery There's a family drop-in event from 1-3pm on Anzac Day that uses a current exhibition in the gallery as inspiration for art activity.
Visitor Programme co-ordinator Kim O'Loughlin gives a short talk on the watercolour Simpson and his donkey, Gallipoli, 1915 by New Zealand World War I artist Horace Moore-Jones. Sunday, April 26, 11am
Lest We Forget the 500 Cook Islands Soldiers The 500 men from the Cook Islands who served in the Great War inspired this show by the New Zealand Cook Islands Arts Collective. The soldiers' journey started with training at Narrow Neck Military Camp and eight Cook Island soldiers are buried at O'Neills Pt Cemetery in Bayswater.
Depot also shows Lost Men of Devonport, with battlefield photos, journals and more.
Relatives of soldiers share their memories, stories and songs in Living Memories (today 11am-3pm), while there are artist talks tomorrow and next Sunday (both 12 noon). Te Po Karioi Night of Entertainment has dance, artist talks and tributes (May 2, 4pm)
Both shows run until May 6. Depot Artspace, 28 Clarence St, Devonport.
Visions & Voices Estuary Arts Centre's show includes World War I trench artefacts and watercolours from official war artists as well as local artists' tributes and printed crosses made by local young people.
Wings and Wurlitzer The 1927 Academy Award-winning silent war film Wings is accompanied by John Atwell on Hollywood Cinema's legendary Wurlitzer organ. It stars Clara Bow and a career-launching cameo by Gary Cooper. Hollywood Cinema, 20 St Georges Rd, Avondale. Saturday the 25th at 2pm.
Peter Weir's award-winning 1981 film Gallipoli, starring Mel Gibson and Mark Lee, shows at the Art Gallery on Anzac Day, 1.30pm.
Memories Parnell's Ewelme Cottage hosts the mini-exhibition, Grandsons at War, featuring items associated with the Lush family and its involvement in fighting overseas. Three of the grandsons fought overseas; only one returned home. Until June 28, Sundays only.
Papakura RSA is hosting a World War I Commemorative Field Day with military memorabilia, pipe and brass bands and a battle re-enactment. There will be vintage military vehicles on display all day -- a chance for youngsters to see how primitive the equipment was for battle. Today, 10am-4pm, Ray Small Park, Papakura.
Howick Historical Village displays war mementos, including a "Till the Boys come home" patriotic banner and souvenirs. Services with The Last Post, talks and battle re-enactments.
Artist Cristina Beth's Peace Poppy Project has grown from making 1000 poppies for the Titirangi roundabout to a regional and national project. Now in her third year, Christina has sent out over 42,000 poppy-making kits to dozens of community groups.
The poppies will be "planted" in key spots around Auckland, starting tomorrow at Titirangi roundabout and New Lynn's Todd Triangle.
This year, more than 42,000 poppies have been crafted by hundreds of work groups to be installed around the city. Photo / Supplied
The poppies will then be redistributed to the community (check the signs at each installation for times and places).
"Our focus is on the peace aspect," explains Cristina.
"The families who looked after the men who came back, the grieving families, as well as the men who went away."
Installations around Auckland Council art galleries and libraries, from Monday.
Pukekohe residents make 1000 poppies for the Peace Poppy Project.
Poppies up high SkyCity's Poppy Partnership with the Auckland RSA brings an impressive poppy display down Federal St, while Sky Tower visitors receive a poppy sticker to place on the windows of the main observation deck, a field of poppies 186m above the ground.
RSA and serving defence force folks have free entry. Until April 27. skycityauckland.co.nz
Timelapse Poppies by Emma Bass In a modern twist, Aotea Square projects Emma Bass's two-minute Timelapse Poppies video: the gradual degeneration of the flowers reflecting the tragedy of the fallen soldiers.
Front of Aotea Centre, until May 18, from sunset to midnight
Giant Poppy installation Artist Tony McNeight has 59,000 -- the number of New Zealanders wounded or killed in the war -- red metal petals ready for people to add their messages to create The Giant Poppy art installation on the Domain.
Donate to the Poppyteers (volunteers) at the site, write your message and place your petal disc. Out of towners can donate online and a disc will be placed for you.
Daily until Friday April 24, 8am to 6pm. On display until Monday April 27.
Navy Museum On Anzac Day, people can make a poppy and plant it in our field of remembrance, plus there are panels from 5000 poppies Project NZ, a collaborative work.
The Navy Museum, 64 King Edward Parade, Torpedo Bay, Devonport.
Further Afield
The war was about youngsters - heartbreaking numbers of school-aged boys faked their birth dates to sign up; many were dead before they turned 18.
Waikato Museum has hosted a competition to have students write World War I-inspired poems as part of their For Us They Fell exhibition (opening Anzac Day).
Until the 100th anniversary of the Armistice in November 2018.
What's on at Auckland Museum
Auckland War Memorial Museum has always been the focus of Auckland Council's commemorations.
The war memorial was built in 1929 to honour those who fell, under the banner "He toa taumata rau: Courage has many resting places". This year, the memories are honoured in both the real, and virtual worlds:
Illuminate:When We Go To War Fast becoming a tradition in the nights leading up to and on Anzac Day are the museum's free film screenings projected on to the northern facade. This year the film is from TVNZ's upcoming World War I drama series, When We Go to War, as well as rarely seen photographs of New Zealanders at Gallipoli from the museum's collections; from Wednesday. The images are also available in the museum's new book, The Anzacs: An inside view of New Zealanders at Gallipoli (Penguin Random House). On Anzac Day, hear writer Gavin Strawhan and director Peter Burger talk about the making of the movie (10am), see the pre-recorded Dawn Service from Gallipoli (6pm).
Theatre:They Also Serve Ilona Rodgers and Cathie Harrop (plus music from Paul Harrop and Jennie Khan) will tell the stories of New Zealand women keeping households and communities running at home or serving abroad. Complete with tea, Anzac biscuits and a chance to meet the performers. Today, tomorrow, 2pm. Auditorium, $25. Bookings (09) 306 7048.
