George Bernard Shaw was sometimes sceptical of composers' motives in writing requiems.

VOU Dance Fiji invokes traditional ceremony and ritual.

NZSO describes its annual Bold Worlds: New Frontiers concert as an exploration of contemporary international repertoire and its connections.

It's not difficult to get swept up and away by Great Fire of London musical.

Papakura's Sir Edmund Hillary Library promises a great free day out at the end of the Southern line.

A great English composer is farewelled with poetry and politics.

Newcomers fill gallery with video, words and illusion.

Tempo Dance Festival's FRESH showcase offers a glimpse of dance future.

A full house was predictable with Vladimir Ashkenazy on the podium; it proved one of the APO's finest performances of the season.

It's a spectacle-driven disaster movie that isn't pure escapism. It's got wanton destruction by the barrelful, but it makes every life - or death count.

Michael Parmenter's Insolent River: a tango is 31 years old, but its ability to entrance new audiences remains.

Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra rewarded a spellbound Auckland Town Hall with a brilliant display of the orchestral art.

Chamber Music New Zealand's QuintEssence was touted as a mini-festival, marketed with crass images of Mozart and Brahms as sparring pugilists.

At the galleries with TJ McNamara

A joyous partnership brings sparkle to underrated classical gems.

As a crisp digest of a lurid true-crime story that sprawled over 10 years, the Netflix documentary Amanda Knox deserves credit for concision.

It's called The Magnificent Seven which marks it as a remake of a remake - the 1960 original Western lifted its plot from the 1954 Akira Kurosawa film Seven Samurai.

Director Tim Burton's adaptation of Ransom Riggs' time travelling, gothic novel about children with peculiar abilities is filled with immaculate costumes, imaginative monsters and an overall attention to detail that you don't get at the movies every day.

New ensemble production of Wild Dogs Under My Skirt breathes new life into Tusiata Avia's remarkable collection of poems.

After 28 years, designers continue to dazzle at World of WearableArt show.

Intense and moving, Valerie is Robin Kelly's exceptionally well-written exploration of his family's history of mental illness.

NZTrio's Sunday concert achieved a meld of East and West that fully justified its title, Glow.

In the first of a new series, Janet McAllister writes the first chapter in her mission to visit every one of the region's 55 libraries

In Viky Garden's largest work, the face emerges proudly from a passage of light.

Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg's latest CD is a wonderful souvenir of a concert that too many missed.

A$AP Ferg's third Auckland appearance ended in riotous scenes last night, as a full scale stage invasion ended the show.

While you're unlikely to include Bridget Jones's Baby on your 'best of' list, it's certainly a fun Friday night film that will put a smile on your face.

Just when it seems the year in movies has already reached peak kid-in-the-wilderness, along comes Captain Fantastic.

TVNZ's newest drama Dirty Laundry tries to find comedy in domestic violence, with uncomfortable results.

It may be a rather perplexing premise, but somehow the chaotic gags and sharp script translates into a fun, sweet story about family and belonging.