Articulate

DANCE/VISUAL ARTS

Douglas Wright: Body of Work
The Gus Fisher Gallery
31 August – 20 October 2012

Choreographer Douglas Wright is regarded as one of New Zealand’s most visionary artists. In his 30-year career, he has created more than 40 dance-theatre works. Many of these works have explored what it is to be human, the depths of the human spirit, and our ongoing relationships with life and death.

Audiences at Wright’s performances typically find themselves precariously poised at the edge of their emotions. Fleeting images are at once terrifying and exquisitely beautiful and, though ephemeral by nature, their profundity endures – so much so that when Wright’s dance-theatre work Forever premiered in Switzerland, it was hailed as “an overwhelming contemporary contribution to the history of our life and times.”

The exhibition Douglas Wright: Body of Work gathers work that highlights the extraordinary output of Wright’s body throughout his career. It shows documentation of work in progress – photographs by John Savage, Peter Molloy, MikiNobu Komatsu, Peter Dömötör, and others, capture exquisite flights exerted by uncommon bodies, as well as the complex psyche of Wright’s most seminal choreographies.

Also on show, in a more domestic setting evocative of Wright’s home, are his choreographic workbooks; paintings, sculptures, small installations and drawings, the making of which Wright describes as miniature gestural choreography; and his memoirs and drafts of poems that echo the text of his workbooks – vivid metaphors that give rise to the dances that imprint themselves onto the minds of their audiences long after the curtain has closed.

Wright began dancing with Limbs Dance Company in 1980 and quickly established himself as an important choreographer with works such as Gloria and Forever (made for the Douglas Wright Dance Company). He is also an acclaimed writer: his first book Ghost Dance (part memoir, part love story) won the E.H. McCormick Best First Book of Non-Fiction in 2000 and is included in Fifty Gay and Lesbian Books Everybody Must Read. In 2000, he was chosen as one of five inaugural Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureates. His most recent production rapt was presented at the 2011 Auckland Festival, and has been invited to be performed in The Hague, Holland, in 2013.
 

PUBLIC EVENTS

Saturday 1 September, 1pm
Screening and discussion of dance film Forever (1994) with Douglas Wright, Jo Randerson, filmmaker Chris Graves, rehearsal assistant Ann Dewey and Dr Keren Chiaroni.

Saturday 29 September, 1pm
Douglas Wright reads from his memoirs Ghost Dance, Terra Incognito and other writings.

Saturday 6 October, 1pm
Screening of Leanne Pooley’s award-winning 2003 documentary, Haunting Douglas (75min).

Saturday 13 October, 1pm
A screening of Douglas Wright’s Faun Variations (1987), influenced by Russian choreographer and dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. Artist Sriwhana Spong responds with a discussion of her own interest in Nijinksy, and her films based on research and reimagining of dance history.
 

MUSIC

The New Zealand String Quartet
Auckland - St Matthew-In-The-City
Saturday 1 September, 6.00pm (by candlelight)  Programme 5
Sunday 2 September, 2.30pm  Programme 6

The New Zealand String Quartet’s will be celebrating twenty-five years with final performances of BEETHOVEN! The Complete String Quartets. They are presenting the final two most memorable programmes in this cycle to six cities around New Zealand as well as through Christopher’s Classics in Christchurch.

The Late Quartets comprises two programmes of the composer’s last completed works – string quartets regarded as some of the greatest and most spiritually profound music ever written.

They have an extraordinary and freshness which is a revelation each time they ate heard. There is a modernist quality to them in the way that thye explore with sound to us like strangely complex harmonies that are almost atonal.

They also move from quiet contemplative passages to rough raucous sections giving the impression of the composer searching for the musical equivalent of an intense argument.

Programme 5
String Quartet No 12 in E flat major, Opus 127
String Quartet No 16 in F major, Opus 135
String Quartet No 15 in A minor, Opus 132

Programme 6
String Quartet No 13 in B flat major, Opus 130 with Grosse Fuge
String Quartet No 14 in C# minor, Opus 131

Palmerston North - 22 & 23 August
Napier - 25 & 26 August
Dunedin - 29 & 30 August
Nelson – 4 September
Wellington – 7 & 8 September
Christchurch –12 September

Zephyr
Chamber Music New Zealand’s
10 centres national Tour
9 September - 7 October.

New Zealand’s finest woodwind players combine to form the creamy and colourful sounds of Zephyr – touring to 10 New Zealand centres in September and October as part of Chamber Music New Zealand’s 2012 ‘Kaleidoscopes’ season

The tour by Zephyr begins on Sunday 9 September in Palmerston North, before heading to Napier, Wellington, New Plymouth, Auckland, Hamilton, Invercargill, Nelson, Christchurch, and ending in Dunedin as part of the Otago Festival of the Arts.
Comprising principal players from the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Zephyr has been described as rivalling world-famous chamber ensembles.

The members are all experienced chamber musicians and perform with groups including Flight and contemporary ensemble Stroma.

A world premiere from acclaimed New Zealand composer Gareth Farr features for five of the ten concerts – in Napier, Wellington, Hamilton, Nelson and Dunedin.

It is Gareth’s first work for wind ensemble. Entitled Mad Little Machine and shows the composer at his most exuberant and is inspired by rhythms. “I love rhythms – I’m such a percussion nerd. When I’m walking, I’ll tap different rhythms with my footsteps and mad little things like that”.

“The beat changes all over the place, so it’s like some crazy little machine that gets stuck in a rhythmic groove and then trips over itself, and zooms off in a completely different direction.”

The two programmes are filled with humour, melancholy, energy, melody and beautiful lyricism. Gallic wit and elegance characterise Françaix’s Quintet for Woodwinds, while Ligeti described his Six Bagatelles as “Bartók, with a little Stravinsky”.

“From the light-hearted to the serious, the programme showcases the wind quintet from every perspective, and demonstrates the lyricism and athletic strengths of this versatile ensemble,” says ensemble flautist Bridget Douglas.

Joining Bridget in the ensemble is Ed Allen on horn, Robert Weeks on bassoon, Robert Orr on oboe and Philip Green on clarinet.

Other composers on the programmes include Ross Harris (Fanfares for Solo Horn), Ken Wilson, Hindemith, John Harbison, Ibert, Elliot Carter, Nielsen, Milhaud and Ross Edwards.

VISUAL ARTS

Andy Leleisi'uao , Immigrant Mind
Pah Homestead
5 September - 28 October

Andy Leleisi'uao uses the term 'immigrant' in reference to visual ideas that appear and settle in his art practice.

Immigrant Mind includes inspired moments which have synchronised to inform Andy's work. This body of work relates to his visual language, methodology and responsibility to his Samoan heritage. These interpretations also address the issues we face together in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

The artist grew up in Mangere in South Auckland and Immigrant Mind is an extension of Andy's interest in reflecting on his experience as a New Zealand-born Samoan.

“‘His work has always been confronting and controversial with a strong social concern to it providing a window to the realities of life for Pacific people and particularly Samoan living in New Zealand. They suffer the problems of the migrant worker and the social dislocation which creates social problems for many. But he also highlights the issues of family violence and the oppressive and destructive roles of the churches in Pacific communities. At times his work was raw and obvious, a screaming at injustices that he saw. In these more recent works though the voice is more moderated and rather than a Pacific voice the works have a more universal theme of social and moral dysfunction and alienation.”

Some of his recent work derives stylistically from a number of sources including the pictogram works of John Pule and the strip works of Shane Cotton. They also have resonances with many earlier narrative based art works such as Egyptian paintings, Greek Vases, Medieval and Renaissance fresco cycles as well as traditional Samoan siapo work

Andy's work is included in the Wallace Arts Trust Collection as well as collections of Pataka Museum , Te Papa Tongarewa , Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki and the Chartwell Collection.