Category Archives: Expressive Arts

Expressive Arts – anything theatre, creative writing or digital media production at Massey University

Massey Graduate’s First Poetry Collection Reviewed

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A great review of Wellington Massey Expressive Arts graduate, Annabel Hawkins’ first collection of poetry, This Must be the Place:

‘The move from a blog, where the posts were an amalgam of structured poems, as well as open-form entries with no real structure, was a challenge. Here, in This Must be the Place, these have been collected, worked on, revised, and her words are bound together with feelings and memories. The form is stricter, but the intentions and honesty remain in the collection. Hawkins avoids high-brow language and form, aiming instead for accessibility. Her language oscillates, as if working to a pattern, between poeticism surrounding time and abstract emotions, and specific language of both time and place—with references to polar fleeces, durries, skateboards, ripped jeans, Briscoes, all carving out an eternal moment in time.’

If you’d like to read more, click http://bit.ly/1Lm1nCx.

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Students turn creative lens on dementia

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Sue Wilson plays the character Betty, who re-establishes a connection with her 'memory' (photo/Eilidh Penman)

Sue Wilson plays the character Betty, who re-establishes a connection with her ‘memory’ (photo/Eilidh Penman)

Massey University theatre and media students have been using their creative talents for social good by exploring new ways to communicate with people who have dementia, as well as helping others to better understand the condition.

Students at Massey’s Auckland campus have developed short films, music videos and a theatre performance in partnership with a nearby residential care facility, Aria Gardens, in Albany. The works were created as part of a ground-breaking new paper led by applied theatre specialist Dr Rand Hazou.

One of the four groups on the course explored the use of doll therapy for residents experiencing ‘sun-downing’ – the mid to late-afternoon period when some dementia sufferers feel agitated and confused. Another used TimeSlips – an imaginative storytelling technique that doesn’t rely on memory, and is suited to engaging with some of the residents who have dementia.

Dr Hazou says the Creativity in the Community paper – offered through the School of English and Media Studies to Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Communications students – allows students to come up with creative ways to connect with a specific community setting and explore artistic methods to communicate issues relevant to that community.

“By partnering with Aria Gardens, we’ve had a unique opportunity to engage with some of the issues surrounding ageing and dementia, and find creative interventions that challenge negative stereotypes within the wider community,” Dr Hazou says.

“After giving students some introductory information on dementia and some coaching on communication techniques, we began visiting Aria Gardens to meet with residents and staff and build up relationships. The idea was that together we could work towards delivering creative interventions that explore issues of positive ageing and dementia.”

Dr Rand Hazou with students in the Theatre Lab

Dr Rand Hazou with students in the Theatre Lab

Over the last 10 weeks students visited Aria Gardens and designed their creative projects as a result of their interactions with residents. They also worked with Annabel Grant, a clinical educator within Massey’s Institute of Education, to understand the specific communications challenges that the elderly and those with dementia might experience.

Last week the students presented their projects at the Theatre Lab on the Auckland campus.

“We’re also planning on presenting our projects back to the residents and staff at Aria Gardens and inviting feedback and discussion,” Dr Rand says.

Jon Amesbury, the manager of Aria Gardens, says his 133-bed facility seeks innovative and creative ways to empower residents as part of its philosophy. He says the project was “hugely positive.”

“The residents who took part felt really empowered because they were part of creative projects that recognised their lives and experiences, which increases their self-worth.”

Mr Amesbury is entering the project in the national Excellence in Care Awards 2015. He says the project and partnership with Massey University is unique. He would like to see similar creative projects and partnerships developed more widely as the elderly population rapidly increases and issues such as social isolation, grief, sexuality, depression and anxiety they experience need to be addressed and understood.

Dr Hazou says the group creative projects also allow students to develop important teamwork and communications skills that help them to become “work ready and world ready”.

He says the aim of the paper, as well as other new courses being introduced at Massey, is to develop the students’ capacities as adaptive, engaged and responsible citizens. “We want to produce students who can use creative skills to engage with problems they see around them.”

This aim is also being mirrored in Massey’s redesigned Bachelor of Arts, as well as the introduction of the Major in Creative Writing and a Minor in Theatre Studies from next year.

Anna Beaton, a Bachelor of Communications student enrolled in the paper, says the project helped her learn to navigate “confronting” situations with confidence. Her project was a short film aimed to create awareness of dementia using sketching, watercolours, music, and voice-over narration.

Student projects were; ‘Sketchy Memories’ (a three-minute film depicting a narrative fiction based on dementia); ‘Pieces of My Mind’ (a music video on dementia targeting a wide audience); ‘One Moment in Time’ (theatre performance to demonstrate the benefits of doll therapy during the mid to late afternoon period of agitation and confusion in those living with dementia, referred to as ‘sundowning’); and ‘Youthless’ (a short film influenced by elderly residents and their experiences and perspectives on communicative difficulties and memory loss).

Do People Dance When They’re Married? – Auckland Performances

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Do People Dance When They’re Married?

A selection of plays by Massey lecturer and playwright Angie Farrow will be performed from 28 – 31 May in Auckland. With a distinctive theatrical style that combines absurdity with lyricism, these short works each explore the themes of intimate relationships and lives left un-lived.

28 – 31 May in the Drama Studio, Arts 1 (Building 206), University of Auckland, Symonds Street, Auckland.

Adult $15
Concession $10
Student $10

For all bookings email uoadramabookings@gmail.com.

Method of payment is CASH only on the night. All tickets must be paid for ten minutes before the performance or they will be resold.

http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/…/drama-production–do-peopl…

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Competition Winner – Janet Newman

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Master of Creative Writing student, Janet Newman, has won first place in the Page & Blackmore Short Story Competition, run by the Top of the South branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors.  Judge Ted Dawe, commended Janet’s short story “Like Light” for its seamless transition of narration and quality of writing.  Congratulations, Janet!

http://www.topwriters.co.nz/competition-results.html

Script writer shares art of page-to-screen

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Aspiring film scriptwriters will have a chance to hear how to get an idea off the page and onto the screen at a special seminar with scriptwriter Dr Matthew Harris. Dr Harris, a tutor in the School of English and Media Studies at the Auckland campus, is presenting two of his short films in the first of the Arts Out Loud series on creativity this Wednesday (May 20). Film buffs will be treated to screenings of his short films Snooze Time (2014), and 43,000 Feet (2012), which premiered at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival in 2012. It was selected from more than 2,800 submissions and competed with another 58 films from 25 countries.

Dr Harris will talk about the genesis of the ideas for the films, the writing and revision process of the scripts, and elements of the production that bear on the translation from the page to screen. He will also comment on the thematic link between the films: human perceptions of time. “I’ll be talking about where my ideas come from and how I got into writing. And also about the research that’s part of the writing process,” he says. He has “always been fascinated by time and how people experience time.”

Dr Harris’ films have travelled the international festival circuit from Tribeca in New York to the Clermont-Ferrand Festival in France, accruing various awards and nominations. His short fiction and poetry has been published variously in New Zealand and abroad. His nine-minute film 43,000 Feet is a mix of live action and animation with an interior monologue voiced by Peter Bryant to convey the thoughts of statistician John Wilkins as he falls to Earth. He calculates he has exactly three minutes and 48 seconds before impact, formulating a plan for hitting the ground and rehearsing what he will say to media on the off chance he survives.

“It’s about the different kinds of time we experience, from the agonisingly slow (morning-after-time, microwave-time) to the truly chaotic – such as the contradictory-time of old age, when the days seem to crawl by but Christmas comes around faster each year.”

His latest short film Madam Black, about a glamour photographer who runs over a child’s pet and is forced to fabricate a story about its disappearance, has been selected for the Dances with Films festival (May 28-June 7) in Hollywood. Madam Black begins its festival run on Saturday, 30 May at the Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, competing for ‘Best Short’ in the Dances With Films festival.

He is currently working on a feature-length fictionalised documentary about the curious history of the Christmas carol O Holy Night, which was allegedly written by a professed atheist. Dr Harris graduated with a PhD in New Zealand fiction at Massey’s Auckland campus in 2012. Find out more about his work here, and a blog on his films here.

Arts Out Loud is co-ordinated by Dr Rand Hazou and Dr Jack Ross from the School of English and Media Studies, which is introducing a new major in Creative Writing in the Bachelor of Arts next year.

Event details:

‘From page to screen’ with Dr Matthew Harris: May 20, 12.30-1.30: Theatre Lab, Sir Neil Waters Building.

A storyboard from Dr Matthew Harris’ short film Snooze Time.

NUTS NZ Issue #6

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Editorial

Welcome to the sixth edition of NUTS NZ – the Newsletter for University Theatre Studies New Zealand. The purpose of the newsletter is to help us communicate more effectively as a community of scholars interested in Theatre and Performance. We have an interesting selection of stories and news items for you in this mid-year issue of of the newsletter for 2015. In this issue we have included the first of what we hope will be a series of ‘correspondences’ from Dr. Sharon Mazer who will be discussing issues related to the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) exercise, and the challenges we face as a community in how performance research is evaluated. Sharon raises the possibility of beginning a conversation about PBRF at the ADSA annual conference which is just around the corner. This year’s Australasian Association for Theatre, Drama and Performance Studies (ADSA) conference ‘Revisiting The Player’s Passion: the Science(s) of Acting in 2015′ is being hosted by the University of Sydney. We understand there will be good representation by Kiwi scholars at this event. The new book ‘Embodying Transformation:Transcultural Performance‘ (Monash University Press, 2015) will be launched at the conference. The book features a substantial contribution from scholars based in Aotearoa/NZ, including Hilary Halba, James McKinnon, George Parker, Bronwyn Tweddle, and Rand Hazou.

We are conscious that this issue of NUTS is very Auckland focused. We are sure that other programmes around the country are producing wonderfully exciting theatre projects and research that we should know about. So please send us information on any upcoming events or initiatives that you think our wider theatre and academic community should be informed about. Perhaps you could nominate someone within your programmes to be a NUTS NZ media officer? Please refer to the important dates below. We plan to circulate our seventh issue in mid-August 2015, and we will need items of news by 31st of July. As always, submissions should be sent to the NUTS NZ editor Jane Marshall:  j.g.marshall@massey.ac.nz

Newsletter Issue Information Required by Date of Circulation
Issue 7 31 July 2015 14 August 2015
Issue 8 30 October 2015 13 November 2015

Kind regards,

NUTS NZ editors: Jane Marshall and Rand Hazou.

 

PBRF Corespondent’s Report

This is a critical year in the lead-up to PBRF 2018. Now is the time to be discussing strategies for meeting the challenges ahead within our own institutions and with each other more widely. We need to be thinking creatively both about the way our work is produced and about how it is to be represented in our portfolios. I expect PBRF will be central to our regular November meeting (hosted by Auckland University this year). In addition, if there is sufficient interest, perhaps we can organise an earlier conversation – at ADSA, for example, and at other regional gatherings (Auckland, anyone?).

In fact, we have less than three years to produce the work – performances and publications – that will be pulled into portfolios, counted and evaluated. Manuscripts of articles, book chapters, books and play texts must be in process by the end of the year to ensure they’re in print by the end of 2017. Even e-journals need a fair bit of lead time. And research-oriented performances will surely need to be in development, in order to elicit the sorts of critical, international attention that can lift the apparent value of the work in the eyes of the assessors.

There have been some significant changes to PBRF for the next round: an attempt, it seems, to emphasise quality over quantity, to place a higher value on reception of research (ie ‘impact’) in the wider community and to simplify the work of panellists somewhat. The number of ‘Nominated Research Outputs’ remains four, but the number of ‘Other Research Outputs’ has been reduced to twelve. The ‘Peer Esteem’ and ‘Contribution to the Research Environment’ categories have been merged into a single ‘Research Contributions’ category, with a maximum of fifteen examples allowed. There will be limits to the percentage of staff at any one institution who can claim ‘special circumstances’, and staff will no longer be able to request cross-referrals between panels.

You may also be aware of a number of consultations circulating. The proposal to collapse Creative and Performing Arts output categories into a single ‘Original Creative Work’ is especially problematic, I think, for those of us working in theatre and performance research. The suggestion to reduce the designations for conference contributions to just (1) paper published in proceedings, and (2) other (including full papers presented orally) is also troubling from my perspective. Your institutions’ PBRF coordinators can provide copies of the relevant documents and involve you in the discussion, if you’re at all interested. Truth is, they’d probably be delighted to be asked.

My new role at AUT directly involves supporting staff and student research in theatre and performance, PBRF included. While there is an aspect of competition between institutions, I remain committed to lifting the profile of our disciplines in this national exercise. Feel free to contact me: smazer@aut.ac.nz.

Best to you all

Sharon

Dr Sharon Mazer
Associate Professor of Theatre & Performance Studies @ AUT
Convenor, NZ Universities Committee for Theatre/Performance Research

NUTS PEOPLE

In each edition of NUTS NZ we profile an academic and a postgraduate student to show case “our people” and their current research/interests. It is our pleasure to be profiling Lecturer Emma Willis and postgraduate student James Wenley from the University of Auckland.  NUTS NZ asked each of them to answer the following questions:

  • What is your research about?
  • What theatre/performances have you seen recently?
  • What have you been reading lately?

Dr Emma Willis

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Research: Ask me anything except what I’m researching right now! The monograph that came from my PhD thesis, Theatricality, Dark Tourism and Ethical Spectatorship, was published last year so I feel I’m at the beginning of a new phase of research. I have some formative ideas that continue to play around with the concept spatial dramaturgies, this time beginning with the Humanist folly gardens of the 16th century, such as Sacro Bosco, as a point of departure. I’ve also been talking to Dorita Hannah about an edited collection on the history of experimental performance in New Zealand so that is on the horizon. As a prelude I am writing a short history of BATS’ STAB commission to coincide with its 20th year in 2015. On the creative side, I have returned to some playwriting this year – writing shorts scenes. I’m also continuing to work with Malia Johnston and we have a work in progress called Red, which we started making last year and which hopefully we’ll get to spend some more time on in the coming months. Keeping my creative research practice active and engaged is a focus for me this year.

Theatre:  I’m teaching a 700 level playwriting class this year and I am really excited by the theatre that I see my students creating every week. I’m very much interested in the work that words do in the theatre (especially having been quite involved in dance for the last few years) and I am always so struck by the range of responses to the weekly writing tasks that the students undertake. There are eleven completely distinctive voices in the class and their work has inspired me to get back to playwriting myself. I really love to see work-in-progress. There’s a freedom at that preliminary stage of the process that is so exciting. Some of the performances I’ve seen that I’ve enjoyed the most over the last year have been showings. I also love the generosity of the audience in these sorts of contexts. I wish we could maintain the spirit of artistic freedom and audience generosity when the whole ‘business’ of theatre comes into play.

Reading: For the playwriting class I’ve been reading a lot of plays. Highlights have been David Greig’s The Events, which the SiLO is producing later in the year. A very theatrically adventurous play about how we attempt to decipher seemingly indecipherable actions. I can’t wait to see it. I’ve also been delving into the work of Suzan Lori-Parks, who we don’t much read or teach here. I’ve put one of her plays on the curriculum so I am intrigued to see what students will make of her work. I’ve recently joined the Performance Paradigm team as book reviews editor. Their most recent issue is themed around resistance and there is a particularly fantastic essay by Paul Rae that thinks through the relationship between theatre and resistance. Essential reading for anyone interested in the topic: http://www.performanceparadigm.net/index.php/journal/article/view/146

 James Wenley

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Research: The Topic of my Doctoral Thesis is “New Zealand Theatre’s Overseas Experience”. I’m interested in the productions that have toured from this country overseas, examples of international companies producing New Zealand plays, and how cultural and national identity within New Zealand originated theatre works are represented and received in an international context. I’ve just done an archival research trip to the Alexander Turnball, Playmarket, Victoria’s J.C. Beaglehole Room, and Otago’s Hocken Library and am working through lots of material on playwrights like Bruce Mason, Robert Lord, Roger Hall, and productions like Waiora and Downstage’s Hedda Gabbler. There are lot of current initiatives to produce NZ theatre overseas, like the 2014 NZ at Edinburgh season, so this is an ideal time to be researching this topic and later this year I have the opportunity to run away from the zombies in Generation of Z in London. I’m playing with ideas of regionalism, cultural specificity, universalism, global hybridity as well as the economic and institutional factors behind the production of work overseas, and what it all means for theatremakers in this part of the world.

Theatre: I’m the editor of Auckland Theatre blog TheatreScenes.co.nz and a theatre critic for Metro Magazine so there are not many Auckland productions that escape me. I think Rochelle Bright’s Daffodils is brilliant, and was pleased to catch its return Auckland season at Q. It maximises nostalgia through its remixes of the great kiwi songbook (Anchor Me, Language etc) performed exquisitely by Todd Emmerson and Coleen Davis. It’s a boy meets girl story which doesn’t end well, and for me has something quite important to say about masculinity in this country. Most recently I was very energised by Emily Perkins’ contemporary adaptation of A Doll’s House which throws a grenade at social, gender, economic and ethical complacency. “Just what this country needs right now” I wrote in my review (http://www.metromag.co.nz/culture/stage/a-dolls-house-review/).

Reading: I’ve recently gone on a binge of texts dealing with Interculturalism spiralling out from Ric Knowles short but sharp theatre & interculturalism. I’ve also been reading a lot about performance that deals with medical issues for a course I’m teaching for the University of Auckland’s Medical Humanities. Arthur W. Frank’s The Wounded Storyteller is very provocative. Non-theatre related I’ve been dipping in and out of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari which is quite a fascinating frame for thinking about our history. I love these sorts of big picture exercises that try to take account of where we are and how we got there.

Conferences/Seminars

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Call for papers – Symposium Announcement

International Applied Theatre Symposium: The Performance of Hope

  • November 9th, 10th & 11th 2015
  • Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Auckland, New Zealand
  • Deadline for abstract submissions: Monday 11th May, 2015

The Critical Research Unit in Applied Theatre (CRUAT) at the University of Auckland sends a call out for you to join us at the International Applied Theatre Symposium: The Performance of Hope, November 9th – 11th 2015. The symposium celebrates and questions applied theatre’s potential to be a liberating and humanising process. The symposium includes confirmed keynotes from Professor Peter McLaren, Professor Peter Freebody, Associate Professor Penny Bundy and Dr Emma Willis, applied theatre performances, practical workshops and academic papers. As in previous symposia there will be a separate strand for postgraduate students to meet and work together (9th November). The last symposium in 2013 brought together 100 participants from around the world and nearly 30 postgraduate students from the Eastern seaboard of Australia and throughout New Zealand.

Symposium Themes

Hope, like freedom is an ontological need. Hope is the desire to dream, the desire to change, the desire to improve human existence. As Freire says, hopelessness is “but hope that has lost its bearings”. This fourth international symposium hosted by CRUAT continues our interrogation of the links between applied theatre and critical hope. We situate this debate within our understanding of the potential for applied theatre to create spaces for those regularly denied full citizenship. When applied theatre provides opportunities to participate in thinking and talking about the world to those denied these rights, it is a force against the anti-democratic practices of global capitalism; it is a performance of hope and resistance. This symposium celebrates theatre’s potential to realise hope and possibility in communities of despair, disenfranchisement and disadvantage. This symposium will bring together artists and professionals working in education, health, community and youth work, inviting them to share their research and practice.

Proposals are sought for:

  • Workshops (60 or 120 mins)
  • Research paper presentations (20 mins)
  • Performances (60 or 120 mins)
  • Symposia/roundtable discussions (60 mins)

Information for contributors:

  • Abstracts should be no more than 300 words and should address the conference themes
  • Proposals should be sent to m.mullen@auckland.ac.nz
  • Please include a biography of no more than 150 words that will be suitable for inclusion in the conference programme
  • This is a peer-reviewed conference
  • Closing date for submissions: Monday 11th May 2015
  • Conference website:http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/events/events-2015/11/the-performance-of-hope.html

CRUAT (Critical Research Unit in Applied Theatre), University of Auckland

May Events 2015

CRUAT welcomes Curt L. Tofteland, Founder and Producing Director of Shakespeare behind Bars, USA, who will give public presentations in Auckland. Christchurch and Wellington. Full details can be found here: http://www.creativethinkingproject.org/curt-tofteland-fellow/#curt-events

These talks are accompanied by one-day symposia in each location that will showcase projects happening in New Zealand prisons and discuss issues around rehabilitation and reintegration with the arts and academic community. For more information contact: Associate Professor Peter O’Connor: p.oconnor@auckland.ac.nz

These events are being hosted with Arts Access Aotearoa with the University of Auckland Creative Thinking Project.

Creativity: The Possibilities of Hope – a Postgraduate Seminar

Meet with the Creative Thinking Project’s fifth Creative Fellow and fellow postgraduate students in theatre,  applied theatre and related disciplines. Curt L. Tofteland is the founder of Shakespeare Behind Bars, an internationally acclaimed personal transformation program which combines art, theatre, and the works of William Shakespeare to create Restorative Circles of Reconciliation in prisons. Shakespeare Behind Bars, is the subject of Philomath Films award-winning documentary which began its life at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival and traveled to more than forty film festivals around the world winning eleven awards.

  • Date: 18 May 2015
  • Venue: Faculty of Education, The University of Auckland.
  • Time: 2-3.30 p.m.
RSVP: This event is strictly limited in numbers. You will need to confirm early to reserve attendance
Please email: p.oconnor@auckland.ac.nz

Creativity in Corrections Symposium, Tuesday 19 May, 9am–4pm, University of Auckland

The visit of Curt L. Tofteland, the University of Auckland’s fifth Creative Fellow, provides an opportunity for Arts in Corrections practitioners, Corrections staff and the wider community to gather and talk about the role of creativity in making a difference in people’s lives. Curt L. Tofteland is the founder of Shakespeare Behind Bars, an internationally acclaimed personal transformation programme that combines art, theatre and the works of William Shakespeare to create Restorative Circles of Reconciliation in prisons. Shakespeare Behind Bars is the subject of an award-winning documentary that began its life at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, has travelled to more than forty film festivals around the world and won eleven awards. The symposium also provides an opportunity to work practically with Curt. The symposium will also include a discussion panel featuring:

  • Curt Tofteland, University of Auckland’s Creative Fellow
  • Penelope Glass, prison artist, Santiago, Chile
  • Associate Professor Peter O’Connor, University of Auckland
  • Jacqui Moyes, Arts in Corrections Advisor, Arts Access Aotearoa
Venue: Room N356, The Faculty of Education, University of Auckland, Epsom Ave, Epsom.
For more information contact: Dr. Molly Mullen: m.mullen@auckland.ac.nz

 November 2015 Events

CRUAT International Symposium – Performance of hope: 9th-11th November

The Critical Research Unit in Applied Theatre (CRUAT) at the University of Auckland sends a call out for you to join us at our fourth international symposium. The 2015 symposium celebrates and questions applied theatre’s potential to be a liberating and humanising process. The symposium includes confirmed keynotes from Professor Peter McLaren, Professor Peter Freebody, Associate Professor Penny Bundy and Dr Emma Willis, applied theatre performances, practical workshops and academic papers. As in previous symposia there will be a separate strand for postgraduate students to meet and work together (9th November). The last symposium in 2013 brought together 100 participants from around the world and nearly 30 postgraduate students from the Eastern seaboard of Australia and throughout New Zealand.

Deadline for abstract submissions: Monday 25th of May, 2015

For more information and full call for papers see http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/events/events-2015/11/the-performance-of-hope.html
or contact Dr. Molly Mullen: m.mullen@auckland.ac.nz

 

Performances

Do People Dance

Do People Dance When They’re Married?

Three short award winning plays by Angie Farrow and directed by Rachael Longshaw-Park, including ‘Leo Rising’, ‘Tango Partner’ and ‘Lifetime’. With a distinctive theatrical style that combines absurdity with lyricism, these short works each explore the themes of intimate relationships and lives left un-lived.

28th of May – 31 of May in the Drama Studio, Arts 1 (Building 206), University of Auckland, Symonds Street.

  • Adult $15
  • Concession $10
  • Student $10.
For all bookings email uoadramabookings@gmail.com.
Method of payment is CASH only on the night. All tickets must be paid for ten minutes before the performance or they will be resold.

 

 

 

 

Arts Out Loud – Albany Campus

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Arts Out Loud - Albany Campus

From Page to Screen

A presentation by scriptwriter Dr Matthew Harris and the screening of two films, Snooze Time (2014), and 43000 Feet (2012). Dr Harris will be talking about the genesis of the ideas for the films, the writing and revision process of the scripts, and elements of the production that bear on the translation from the page to screen. Dr Harris will also comment on the thematic link between the films: human perceptions of time.

About the Speaker

Dr Matthew Harris is a writer of short films and other fictions. His films have travelled the international festival circuit from Tribeca in New York to the Clermont-Ferrand Festival in France, accruing various awards and nominations, and his short fiction and poetry has been published variously in NZ and abroad. He graduated with a PhD in New Zealand fiction at Massey’s Albany campus in 2012, and tutors in the School of English and Media Studies. A sample of his work can be found here: http://www.matthewjamesharris.com

 

When:        A special lunch-time presentation on Wed 20th of May from 12:30-1:30

Where:      The Theatre Lab, Sir Neil Waters Building, Massey Albany Campus

 https://www.facebook.com/events/439733682867788/

Native Bird – Book Launch

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In his anticipated third collection, Native Bird, award-winning poet Bryan Walpert – who arrived here from the U.S. a decade ago – writes of what it’s been like to be an observer or “birdwatcher” in a land whose physical and cultural geographies he is still learning to name. With his trademark precision and insight, Bryan weaves meditations on the life and songs of birds into his observations on living as a new settler in wind-charged Manawatu. Working at the shifting borders between homes and hearts, prose and poetry, call and song, this is an arresting collection that speaks to us all.

If you’re in Dunedin this week, please join us at the Dunedin Public Library for launches of Bryan’s new poetry collection, Native Bird, as part of Makaro Press’s Hoopla Series, alongside collections by Carolyn McCurdie (Bones in the Octagon) and Jennifer Compton (Mr Clean & The Junkie).

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Dunedin invite.pdf