Category Archives: Palmerston North

Māori literature deserves academic recognition

The School of English and Media Studies’ new creative writing lecturer has an ambitious vision – to see Māori literature recognised as distinct field.

Award-winning author Dr Tina Makereti, who is Ngati Tuwharetoa, Te Ati Awa, Ngati Rangatahi, Moriori and Pākehā, says people are always surprised to hear that no one offers a single paper in Māori literature in English. “In fact there are less than a handful of academics working in the field in New Zealand. A lot of published research comes from overseas researchers, some of whom have never been to the country.”

Dr Makereti says she’s excited by the opportunity to contribute new research into Indigenous creative writing along with teaching in the School of English and Media Studies. “There is a huge deficit in academic research in Māori and Pacific writing in particular. It’s no wonder young people aren’t drawn to study if they don’t see their own literature reflected.”  She says New Zealand literature courses touch on Indigenous writers but she’d like to see programmes that truly engage with matauranga Māori – Māori understanding and knowledge.

Dr Makereti has a host of awards to her name, including twice winning the Ngā Kupu Ora Māori Book Awards for fiction for her short story collection Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa (Huia 2011) and then her first novel Where the Rēkohu Bone Sings (Vintage 2014).

While her PhD in Creative Writing was completed at Victoria University, Dr Makereti completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Māori Studies at Massey University in 2007 and has taught at Massey in the past. She will be based on the Manawatū campus.

Dr Makereti is looking forward to getting students excited about writing and says she’ll be aiming to surprise them.“People have preconceived ideas about what creative writing is, so I’ll be looking for work that surprises and gets them to look again.”

Globe Theatre Awards – Best Ensemble

Congratulations to Massey’s 2016 Modern Drama class for picking up the award for Best Ensemble at the Globe Theatre awards this weekend! The Globe Awards celebrate the best of Palmerston North’s non-professional theatre, and we were delighted to be in such esteemed company. The production was Caryl Churchill’s 2012 Love and Information, directed by Rachel Lenart, with design, performance and all aspects of production by the 300-level students. The future of New Zealand theatre is bright with these students leading the way!

Shakespeare in Schools

Don’t miss this year’s amazing Summer Shakespeare production of “The Winter’s Tale” directed by Sara Brody, which begins on March 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 9th, 10th and 11th at 7.30 pm at Victoria Esplanade, Palmerston North. As part of our Shakespeare in Schools Project run by our School in Manawatu, Sara worked with drama students at Freyberg High School on Tuesday during a workshop on “The Winter’s Tale”.

Manawatu River becomes a Shakespearean backdrop

Director Sara Brodie is bringing a bit of wild to Summer Shakespeare 2017, with the Manawatu River as a backdrop and all sorts of surprises planned.

In her position as the artist in residence at Massey University, the Kapiti-based director and choreographer has chosen The Winter’s Tale as her play.

“It’s comic and tragic and I want to evoke a winter’s night and the fantastic tale element of it as much as possible.”

A stretch of Palmerston North’s Esplanade river walkway will be the stage for the open theatre piece, and Brodie said all sorts of things become possible in such a setting.

“When the audience actually come along here it will all be set up like a mid-winter fair with braziers, bunting, food stories and fire poi. We enter into the court scenes first where the jealous ravings of King Leontes start.”

Brodie is no stranger to staging outdoor events and said the “happy accidents” that occur are one of the best elements.

“Beautiful sunsets or wind at just the right moment. Those sort of things that really add to the experience for people. This will be like going into the fantastical wilds.”

The annual event is in it’s 14th year and will be drawing on Palmerston North’s non-professional theatre community for the production that will be held next March.

A workshop will be held at 10am on Saturday at Massey University’s Sir Geoffrey Peren Building, which Brodie said will give people an idea of the process.

“It’s for anyone who is interested to come along to meet me and to hear about the production and see some concept imagery around it. We will talk about the story and get our teeth into some of the text and some exercises to have some fun with it.”

Formal auditions for The Winter’s Tale will be held at the end of November and as well as actors and dancers, Brodie is also on the look out for production behind-the-scenes people.

Globe Theatre Awards – Massey’s nominations

We are delighted with the nominations for the Globe Theatre Awards across four Massey University productions this year.  Our student driven production, Arts Uncontrolled, received a nomination for best ensemble. MUDS (our drama society) received two nominations for Misfits, and Kelly Harris received a nomination for Best direction for our Summer Shakespeare production The Merry Wives of Windsor.  Our third year course Modern Drama received three nominations for their production of Love and Information, directed by Rachel Lenart.

The winners will be announced during an awards ceremony at the Globe Theatre in Palmerston North on 24 February 2017.

Theatre with Massey has had an outstanding year in Palmerston North! Congratulations to all our nominees.

 

Research Round-up – July, August and September

A Book published, and a play:

  • Ingrid Horrocks launched a co-edited book (with Cherie Lacey), Extraordinary Anywhere: Essays on Place from Aotearoa New Zealand (Wellington, Victoria  University Press, 2016) at Unity Books, Wellington,  on Tuesday 26 July. http://vup.victoria.ac.nz/extraordinary-anywhere-essays-on-place-from-aotearoa-new-zealand/ Three essays by School of English and Media Studies staff are included in the collection:
    • Horrocks, I.A. with Cherie Lacey, “Writing Here” (8-20).
    • Horrocks, I.A. “Writing Pukeahu: A Year (and More) of Walking in Place” (78-93).
    • Ross, J. “On the Road to Nowhere: Revisiting Samuel Butler’s Erewhon (131-45).
    • The book is also a collaboration with two designer researchers from the College of Creative Arts, Jo Bailey and Anna Brown.

Ingrid Horrocks discussed the collection with Wallace Chapman and Professor Harry Ricketts on Radio NZ: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/sunday

Ingrid

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Associate Professor Elspeth Tilley’s play ‘Waiting for Go’, was performed at the ‘Short+Sweet International Short Play Festival 2016 Canberra Season, Week 1 Top 20 plays’, Canberra Theatre Centre, 9-12 August.

Elspeth

‘Waiting for Go’ at the Canberra Short & Sweet Festival, featuring Ben Harris and Samuel Gordon Bruce

 

 

 

 

 

 

A number of articles and book chapters appeared by English and Media Studies staff:

  • Hazou, Rand T. (2016, January 1). “Performing digital: Multiple perspectives on a living archive” [Book Review]. Australasian Drama Studies, (68), 209-213.
  • Hazou, Rand. (2016, January 1). Real men at play: Massive Company’s the Brave. Australasian Drama Studies, (68), 97-117.
  • Gruber, D.R. (2016). “A review of ‘American Lobotomy: A Rhetorical History’ by Jenell Johnson” [Book Review] Configurations2: 263-265.  See http://muse.jhu.edu/article/626106
  • Ross, Jack. “Company.” In An Encounter in the Global Village: Selected Stories from the 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English (English-Chinese). Ed. Jin Hengshan. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, July 2016. 366-77.
  • Ross, Jack. “Eketahuna.” In Influence and Confluence: East and West. A Global Anthology on the Short Story. Ed. Maurice A. Lee. Shanghai: East China Normal University Press, July 2016. 388-95.
  • Simon Sigley published two videos, Loren from Wellington and Ken from Dunedin in the interviewprojectnz.com series of portraits of ‘ordinary’ New Zealanders.
  • Steer, Philip had an essay published: ‘Colonial Ecologies’, in A History of New Zealand Literature, (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
  • Huffer, Ian had an article published: ‘New Zealand film on demand: searching for national cinema online’ in Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, Vol 30, Issue.
  • Associate Professor Elspeth Tilley had an article published: ‘Theatre in the Age of Climate Change: An Educator’s View’, in Howlround: A knowledge commons by and for the theatre community, Boston, MA: Office of the Arts, Emerson College.


Staff made connections and gave presentations around New Zealand and around the world:

  • Dr Thom Conroy was a panel member at the Hamilton Book Month Fiction Panel, Hamilton, 17 August.
  • Dr Kevin Glynn travelled to Santa Muerte to conduct Marsden funded fieldwork and also to [participate in a workshop on neoliberalism and urban poverty.
  • Associate Professor Joe Grixti presented: ‘Indigenous Media and the Disjunctive Flows of Globalization’, and chaired a panel at the ‘XI European Conference on Social and Behavioural Sciences’, Sapienza University, Rome, 1 – 4 September.
  • Dr Ingrid Horrocks presented ‘“I am strangely displaced”: Troubling Romantic Mobilities’, at the ‘North-American Society for the Study of Romanticism Conference’, University of California, Berkeley, USA, 11-14 August.
  • Dr Mary Paul presented: ‘Substitution and seclusion in Life Writing teaching’, at Ahi Ka: Building the Fire’creative writing conference, AUT, Auckland, 10 September.
  • Dr Jack Ross attended a short story conference in Shanghai from 12-16 July 2016 and gave the following presentations:

Jack Ross: “Settler & Speculative Fiction in the NZ Short Story: A Tale of Two Anthologies,” a paper given at the 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English: “Influence and Confluence in the Short Story: East and West” (East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 13-16 July 2016).

Jack Ross: Member of Plenary Panel on “Influence and Confluence in the Short Story: East and West” at  the 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English, with Dr Hensheng Jin (chair) and fellow-panellists Fang Fang, Yu Hua, Zhao Mei, Su Tong, Bi Feiyu, Robert Olen Butler, and Evelyn Conlon (East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 13-16 July 2016).

Jack Ross: Member of Panel on “‘The V word’ – Voice in the New Zealand Short Story” at  the 14th International Conference on the Short Story in English: “Influence and Confluence in the Short Story: East and West,” with Tracey Slaughter (chair) and fellow-panellists Bronwyn Lloyd, Frankie McMillan and Leanne Radojkovich (East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, 13-16 July 2016).

Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Dr Jack Ross presented: ‘What should a magazine called Poetry NZ look like?’, and gave a Poetry Reading: ‘Poetry Adventures on and off the page’, at the University of Canberra Poetry Festival, 6-16 September.
  • Dr Philip Steer presented a co-authored paper: ‘Signatures of the Carboniferous: Coal Power in the Age of Man’, at the ‘V-Cologies conference’, Davis University, California, 16-17 September.
  • Dr Sy Taffel’s film: ‘Connect to the Heartland’, was screened as part of a Palmerston North-based Massey Residence Halls film night, 27 September and at Takaro Rotary Club in Palmerston North, 29 September.
  • Dr Kim Worthington presented a co-authored paper: ‘Reading Coetzee’s Women’, at a Conference hosted by Monash University in Prato, Italy, 27-29 September.
  • Associate Professor Bryan Walpert gave a presentation, ‘Border Crossers: Identity, Place and New Zealand Voice(s)’, at the ‘Ahi Ka: Building the Fire’ creative writing conference, AUT, Auckland, 10 September.


The School hosted a conference on Creative Writing: Building the Fire

  • On 10 and 11 September, Dr Thom Conroy, English and Media Studies, organised ‘Ahi Ka: Building the Fire’, the second creative writing colloquium sponsored by the Aotearoa Creative Writing Research Network. The colloquium was co-organised with the Auckland University of Technology and held at their city campus. The conference committee consisted of Dr Thom Conroy and Associate Professor Bryan Walpert from the School of English and Media Studies, and James George from AUT. The keynote speaker was the Pasifika poet and lecturer Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh.

Selina

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ahi Ka: Building the Fire keynote speaker Selina Tusitala Marsh     

 

Thom

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Thom Conroy at ‘Ahi Ka: Building the Fire’

 

And hosted events that allowed others to connect and imagine together:

  • July 1 saw 187 high school students and teachers hosted on Wellington campus for the Create1World Global Citizenship and Creative Activism Conference. Attendees heard from 16 national and international creative activists via a global Zoom linkup, heard the Kiwi students who were chosen as finalists in the national #Create1World competition present their song-writing, performance, media and creative writing entries for judging, and got together to brainstorm creative solutions to planetary problems, which will be presented as a report to political leaders.  Radio New Zealand covered the conference here: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/standing-room-only/audio/201807707/creative-activism

Lizzie

Lizzie Marvelly, BA graduate and guest judge, with finalists from Wellington College; a team of six performers from St Cuthbert’s College in Auckland took out first place in the performance category with their short play ‘Stories of Syria’.

 

 

 

 

 

  • The School’s series, ‘Creativity at the Centre’, presented award winning Austrian author Julienne van Loon at the Manawatu Campus on 17 August.

AOW

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Hosted ‘Chicago Style Improvised Theatre: A Weekend Immersion Workshop’, in the Wellington Theatre Lab on 12 August.
  • On 28 September, ‘Pukeahu ki Tua Think Differently Wellington’ sponsored: ‘Imagining Together’, a multidisciplinary panel discussion about creativity at Wellington campus organised by Associate Professor Elspeth Tilley, School of English and Media Studies, Ms Stella Robertson, College of Creative Arts, and Dr Martina Battisti, Massey Business School. The panellists: Juliette Hogan, (Fashion Designer),  David Clayton, (Animation Supervisor, Weta Digital), Jason O’Hara, (Artist/Photographer), Greg Ellis, (Theatre/Comedy), Dr  Ingrid Horrocks, School of English and Media Studies, (Creative Writer), and Warren Maxwell, (Musician), explored the differences and similarities in their creative process through a discussion of risk and uncertainty in creative careers.

 

Imagining

 

‘Imagining Together’, Wellington Campus, 28 September

 

 

 

 

 

Spotlight on Tutor Staff Research

In this post we focus on some of the 2016 successes of our brilliant tutors. Our English and Media Studies tutors have been especially active in the creative areas.

Bronwyn Lloyd participated in the Conference Influence and Confluence in the Short Story: East and West at East China Normal University, Shanghai (13-16 July, 2016). Bronwyn was part of a panel discussion on “Voice in the New Zealand Short Story” with fellow writers Tracey Slaughter, Jack Ross, Frankie MacMillan and Leanne Radjokovich. She was a panellist in a plenary session discussing the question, “Who Owns the Text – The Writer or the Scholar?” with a group of international academics and writers. Bronwyn also read several of her short stories, including the two published in the conference anthology from her nearly completed collection of autofiction, “A Slow Alphabet”: “I for Indifference” and “H for Habit”.

A link to Jack Ross’s blogpost about their trip to Shanghai can be found here: http://mairangibay.blogspot.co.nz/2016/07/jack-bronwyns-shanghai-adventure.html


Tim Upperton
’s poetry book was a finalist in the Ockham NZ Book Awards:

Tim

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU1603/S00164/ockham-new-zealand-book-awards-finalists-announced.htm

http://www.haunuipress.co.nz/the-night-we-ate-the-baby.html

Tim also published poems in Sport 44 (Victoria University Press) http://vup.victoria.ac.nz/sport-44-new-zealand-new-writing-2016/ and New Zealand Books, Autumn 2016 http://nzbooks.org.nz/2016/contents/issue-113-autumn-2016/ as well as in the Annual (Gecko Press) for children, http://www.annualannual.com/#/new-page-5/ and a number of reviews and articles: Metro, NZ Listener, The Spinoff, Radio NZ National.


Sarah Laing
published a graphic memory and an anthology:

Sarah

Mansfield and Me: A Graphic Memoir http://vup.victoria.ac.nz/mansfield-and-me-a-graphic-memoir/http://vup.victoria.ac.nz/mansfield-and-me-a-graphic-memoir/

Three Words: An Anthology of Aotearoa/NZ Women’s Comics http://www.beatnikshop.com/products/three-words

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Matthew Harris’s most recent film MADAM BLACK has screened at over 100 festivals and won 30 awards to date, including the Prix du Public at Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival – FRA (2016), Best Short at Cannes Cinéma des Antipodes – FRA (2016), Directors Choice at the Rhode Island Film Festival – USA (2015), as well as Audience Awards at São Paulo International Short Film Festival – Brazil (2016), Leeds International Film Festival – UK (2015), Cleveland International Film Festival (2016), and the NZ International Film Festival (2015).

https://vimeo.com/131468062

http://www.nzfilm.co.nz/key-people/matthew-harris

Fiona Shearer published a book chapter and co-authored an article:

Shearer, F. (2016). Snapshot – Literacy Aotearoa: Combining formal and informal public relations methods. In J. Johnston, Public relations and the public interest.  New York: Routledge.

And co-authored piece on Puke Ahu Project forthcoming –

Peace, R. & Shearer, F. (forthcoming) Puke Ahu: Articulating a place-based, university campus identity. Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences

And

Tim Corballis, amongst other things, published a number of book chapters, had a collaborative video artwork shown at the 5th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition 2016, and published half a dozen reviews for www.circuit.org.nz/blog.

Corballis, T. (2016). Confronted Worlds: Collaboration as the Gap between Art and Literature. In Sondra Bacharach, Siv B. Fjærestad & Jeremy Neil Booth (Eds.). Collaboration in the Twenty-First Century. Milton Park, Abingdon: Routledge.

Corballis, T. (2016). There is No Up, There is No Down. In Ingrid Horrocks & Cherie Lacey (Eds.). Extraordinary Anywhere: Essays from Aotearoa New Zealand. Wellington: Victoria University Press.

Corballis, T. (2016). Letters from Reality: The Art of Gregory O’Brien. Art New Zealand, 158, 82-85.

Corballis, T., Machine Wind, video artwork, Negative Horizon—the 5th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition 2016, Hong-Gah Museum, Taipei 2016 (with Fiona Amundsen)

2 Readings/panel discussions, Ruapehu Writers’ Festival, Ohakune, 2016

Reading with video accompaniment, LitCrawl, Potocki Paterson Gallery, 2016

 

And there’s a lot going on we don’t list here. It’s been a good year (in some ways at least).

New Homegrown Show Celebrates Palmy Arts Scene

A whirlwind of creators, performers, and poets have come together from Palmerston North’s fantastic creative scene in the unique new show Arts Uncontrolled.

AUMainEvent (1)Featuring six plays, a short film and original poetry, all the pieces have been written by local artists from the Manawatu area. With everything from comedy to tragedy to surrealism, the team behind it have summarised it as ‘a celebration of our community’, with submissions from first time youth writers as well as award-winning professionals.

Artistic Director Tobias Lockhart says that the showcase came about specifically to offer a wider set of opportunities. “The performing arts scene in Palmerston North is so massive, it can be a little daunting. This showcase gives new and upcoming members of the community a chance to shine and become part of the larger scene. With both experienced and new members of the cast and crew, everyone can learn something from one another.”

“For the audience our focus is on making this showcase to be an experience – with something for everyone. Art is something you have to engage with, and our performance will have a range of genres and styles; some humorous, some dealing with more serious issues. By placing no limits on what could be included we opened it up so everyone watching will have something they connect with or enjoy.”

Arts Uncontrolled opens next Wednesday 28th September and runs for four shows. Held in Massey University’s Sir Geoffery Peren Building’s Auditorium, doors will open from 7pm, with a selection of poetry and art to be viewed in the space before the show begins at 7:30 pm.

Tickets:   Full $10.00, Students with ID $5.00
Dates:   Wednesday 28th September – Saturday 1st October
Time:   Space opens 7pm, show begins 7.30pm
Venue:   Sir Geoffrey Peren Building, Massey University, Tiritea Road, Palmerston North
Bookings:   Email t.lockhart@live.com