What’s On: NZ Music Month Gigs, A Play Premiere & More Good Things For The Weekend

Celebrate NZ Music Month, enjoy a feel-good action-comedy film and book in for a dance festival

Dance to NZ tunes

It’s always time to celebrate NZ-made music, but it’s especially encouraged throughout NZ Music Month. It’s the 23rd year of the celebration, backed by the NZ Music Commission, that began as an effort to get local radio stations to play more local artists. Now, May marks a time in the calendar to really engage with the local scene, head out to gigs and support our talented musicians.

Soft Plastics, the indie rock group from Te Whanganui-a-Tara, set off for their album-release tour on May 5. The band are playing their debut album, Saturn Return, at five dates across the country. The tracks have been described as a combination of “shoegaze” and “atmospheric” rock by Rolling Stone. Soft Plastics will play in Christchurch, Dunedin, Whanganui, Auckland and Wellington. Tickets are available from Undertheradar.co.nz and Moshtix.co.nz

Rita Mae, an upcoming indie pop musician, will play a release show for the Superfeeling EP this Friday night at Whammy Bar on Karangahape Rd. The singer-songwriter, who recently opened for Broods and Gin Wigmore, is known for dreamy-sounding tracks with deeply confessional lyrics. Doors open at 8pm and Crystal Chen is lined up as the support act. Tickets are available through Undertheradar.co.nz

Saturday at Whammy will also host another show guaranteed to see a dancing crowd. Dolls on Tour will welcome Auto Angel, Baby Zionov and Hybrid Rose to the stage, with the three acts bringing a blend of bubblegum pop, electronic, club tracks and more to the venue’s backroom. Doors open at 9:30pm and tickets are available through Undertheradar.co.nz

Indie folk ensemble Tiny Ruins will set off on a nationwide album-release tour on May 11, celebrating their Ceremony record. They’ll be swinging by Lyttelton, Dunedin, Queenstown, Wellington, Napier, Paekākāriki, Nelson and Auckland. Viva’s record reviewer Peter Baker said that the newest release is Tiny Ruin’s “best album yet”. Tickets are available through Banishedmusic.com

The NZ Music Month homepage is keeping track of major events running throughout May. The first week of May has also seen the announcements of tours from Erny Belle and Bic Runga lined up for July — NZ Music Month is the best reminder to lock in future dates.

More musicians will be celebrated at a nationwide digital exhibition this month, as portrait works from LA-based photographer Chris Cuffaro will be in various public libraries and exhibition spaces across the country. Among the iconic and rising stars captured are Tiki Taane, Boh Runga, Muroki, Theia, Jess B, Reb Fountain, Fat Freddy’s Drop and Troy Kingi.

As well as the digital showcases at libraries, the Ellen Melville Centre and Aotea Square, one-of-a-kind signed portraits will also be on display at Art News Aotearoa from May 25-June 4. The photographs will also be sold at Webb’s Auction House. All of the proceeds will go to MusicHelps, the charity backed by Neil Finn and Lorde that helps to support music communities and bring projects to those in need.

For more information about times and venues, you can check out PublicityPlus.co.nz

Tour a 3D gallery show

Village Arts Gallery in Hokianga will open a new exhibition this weekend called E Toru Nga — The 3D Show. The collection features the work of 20 artists across several mediums, including contemporary jewellery. There’s also the opportunity to make a full day of your visit, as a temporary passenger ferry will be running from Rāwene to Kohukohu Wharf all throughout May, landing just across from the gallery and near the Kohukohu Cafe.

See a play

Witi’s Wāhine by Nancy Brunning (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāi Tūhoe) opens tonight at the ASB Waterfront Theatre, bringing the influential characters from the beloved works of Witi Ihimaera DCNZM QSM (Te Aitanga-ā-Mahaki) to the stage. In Witi’s Wāhine, Brunning creates a series of vignettes that explore the lives of the wāhine Māori featured in some of Ihimaera’s works, imagining the experiences of the beloved literary icons in a new light. The show is presented by Auckland Theatre Company and Hāpai Productions and closes on May 20.

Tangi, Ihimaera’s first novel, has also been revised for the 50th-anniversary edition, to be released after the show closes — the book will be available in stores after June 6.

See Auckland’s rolling landscape

Parnell’s Artis Gallery is currently showing an exhibition by painter George Baloghy. Urban Pastoral reimagines Auckland in an aesthetic style usually reserved for the rolling hills or countryside, portraying the city’s volcanic cones, tall skyscrapers and bushy trees as a cohesive and beautiful space. Baloghy’s great knowledge of the landscape produces a fond familiarity in the pieces, painted from sittings at Cornwall Park; Mt Victoria; Northern Slope, Mt Hobson; Devonport Wharf; Mt Eden and St Marks Church.

The gallery says the paintings, which capture many of the recent changes in Auckland’s built environment, are more than just records of the changing city, “they are the story of an artist’s lifelong romance with his city”.

Spot an exhibition’s gaps

The Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū will open a new exhibition this weekend, called Absence, which explores the way that gaps or missing elements enhance the works in the collection. The exhibition looks at the result of absence from different emotional perspectives, from deeply mournful to silly and cheeky. It’s a collection that will encourage viewers to lean in and fill in the gaps, which are sometimes small and sometimes glaring.

Felicity Milburn, the lead curator, says, “In art, absence creates mystery, tension and anticipation, implying loss, transformation, exclusion, isolation and much more. It is the unspoken subject in some of the gallery’s most interesting works.”

Works being shown in the exhibition come from artists such as Rita Angus, Ralph Hotere, Séraphine Pick, Robin White, Tim Veling and Claudia Kogachi. Absence opens on May 6.

Head along to a comedy show

The NZ International Comedy Festival kicks off in Aotearoa tomorrow, with Melanie Bracewell set to host the 2023 Best Food Comedy Gala. The guest list at the opening event includes major local and international talents — think Becky Lucas, Guy Montgomery, Ed Gamble, James Mustapic, Kura Forrester and Brynley Stent.

The next week also includes shows from Joe Lycett, James Nokise, Hayley Sproull, Eli Matthewson, David Correos and Josh Thomson. Over the month of May, the festival will host more than 150 world-class comedians performing stand-up, debating on panels and taking suggestions for improv. You can sort through your picks and grab your tickets from the packed programme online. The festival starts on May 5 and closes May 28.

Plant a tree

Native tree plantings are set to take place at many places across the country on Sunday, as the coronation of King Charles III has led the Government to donate $1 million towards conservation. Trees That Count and the Department of Conservation have partnered with the aim of planting 100,000 native trees as a part He Rā Rākau Tītapu — King Charles III Coronation Plantings.

Pukekawa Auckland Domain will host an event to mark the occasion, with a sausage sizzle, face painting and live performances accompanying the planting of a native tree on the green in front of the cenotaph at the Auckland Museum. Four hundred native saplings will be available to take home from 1pm at the event, with a limit of one per family.

See a film

Polite Society, a British action comedy-drama film by Nida Manzoor, has opened to gushing reviews with critics charmed by the freshness and sweetness of the story. The film follows British-Pakistani teenager Ria, who spends her spare time training to become a Hollywood stuntwoman, as she attempts to save her older sister Lena from an impending marriage. The younger sister believes that there is some dastardly plot beneath the surface, and employs the help of her friends to stop the upcoming wedding — mayhem ensues. The film is currently playing in cinemas across the country.

BOOK AHEAD

Bid in a charity auction

Turua Art Gallery and Mike King’s I Am Hope will join forces next Friday evening to raise funds for Gumboot Friday counselling sessions. An auction will take place at the Babylon Store in St Heliers, with works from Abbey Merson, Carrie Broomhall, Michel Tuffery and more donated to the cause. The full catalogue of pieces will be released today and available to view for two days prior to the auction on May 12.

Grab tickets for a dance festival

The Pacific Dance Festival is set to return to Auckland’s theatre scene this June, bringing a diverse range of performances from artists across Moana Nui a Kiwa. While the many dance showcases will, of course, be a major highlight throughout the festival, the programme is also curated to include workshops, seminars, fashion shows and film screenings.

Osefa Enari MNZM, the Pacific Dance New Zealand director, says “This year is about bringing together Pacific artists we have always respected and supported from afar. This is our opportunity to bring to our loyal audiences other dimensions of Pacific dance practices.”

The festival will run from June 1-16, with Manu Malo opening the showcase at the ASB Waterfront Theatre.

See an unusual theatre show

Indian Ink Theatre Company will bring a unique theatre experience to stages around the country through June and August, with their dramatic choral production of Dirty Work. The musical performance follows a chorus of office workers trying to keep the place running as all the computers go down, depicting the collapse of office hierarchies and the clashing of culture, class and value systems.

However, the format of the production is slightly unconventional — the choir members, enlisted from the communities that the play is showing in, don’t get to see a script before stepping on stage. They have to take direction from “the boss” as it comes, resulting in a kind of chaotic joy.

The show will tour Auckland, Nelson, Christchurch, Wellington and Tauranga, and tickets are available through Indianink.co.nz