Stories

The city’s theatre lovers finally have something to look at on the site of The Court Theatre’s new home in central Christchurch. The first concrete has been poured on the Colombo and Gloucester streets site and progress will be swift once the precast concrete panels, steel and large timber elements are in place. Work on the superstructure will progress in phases. The roof will then be installed and once the building is enclosed, fit-out works can start. Once complete, the three-storey building will include a 375-seat playhouse theatre, a 130-seat theatre, an education studio and several multipurpose spaces. The intent is to provide a full range of theatre experiences for all ages of audiences from all parts of the community. The project is part of the wider Performing Arts Precinct. The Christchurch City Council has committed $46 million towards the development of this. The Court is also fundraising $12 million towards...

The city’s dogs will be busting out their best manu and making a splash when this year’s Pooch Pool Parties come to Waltham and Templeton summer swimming pools on the first weekend in April. The events precede the pools’ winter shutdown and have proved a huge success, with more than 400 dogs taking the plunge in 2021. Extra sessions this year mean room for even more. Waltham Pool goes to the dogs first, on Saturday 1 April, with two morning sessions and two afternoon sessions, split by size. Small dogs (up to 46cm tall) are invited from 9am – 10.30am, followed by medium dogs (46 – 64cm) from 11am – 12.30pm and large dogs (over 64cm) from 1pm – 2.30pm. The day ends with an open session with no size limit between 3pm and 4.30pm. Templeton Pool hosts an open session for all dog sizes from 10am to noon on Sunday...

Audiences can feast on a smorgasbord of culinary talent when The Food Show returns to Christchurch Arena on Friday, 31 March. Australia’s favourite home cook, Julie Goodwin, our own Annabelle White, New Zealand MasterChef winner Sam Low, chef and restaurateur Sid Sahrawat and MasterChef judge and chef Vaughan Maybee will be rocking it live in the NEFF Cooking Theatre on the opening day and over the weekend. For the gardeners among you, chef Bri DiMattina will join the action in the kitchen. Bri harvests and cooks from her homegrown “food forest”. Julie Goodwin became a household name when she was crowned Australia’s first MasterChef. Then, when her first cookbook, Our Family Table, was published, she became one of Australia's best-selling authors. Now, several successful books and many, many appearances later, Julie is coming to New Zealand to share her family-focused recipes with Food Show audiences. Thousands are expected at the celebration,...

Come on, Christchurch, it’s our turn! Last Sunday, a rainbow-hued crowd of 50,000 people made their way across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in a Pride march that marked the 45th anniversary of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. This Friday you can add your colours to Christchurch Pride’s Walk for Support, which will gather on Cashel Street outside Ballantynes at 5pm and head towards the Bridge of Remembrance, where this year’s Pride festivities will kick off with shows and performances. The walk is a celebration of inclusivity, visibility, representation and the togetherness of the diverse groups that make up the community that is gay Christchurch. Expect to see some colourfully clad skaters weaving through the crowd. Pride Skate begins at Hagley Netball Courts at 5pm before snaking up to Cashel Street to meet the Pride Walk. The night is then young. The week-long Pride programme kicks on to Riverside Market, which...

With its key themes of teen sex and suicide, it would be hard to get this one past the censors these days. But our star-crossed lovers will not be denied – Shakespeare's great tragedy returns to Christchurch in May with the Royal New Zealand Ballet's passionate re-telling of Romeo and Juliet. The ballet was first seen onstage in 2017, when the mesmerising choreography by Andrea Schermoly (Stand to Reason, Within Without) and the sets and costumes by Academy Award-winning designer James Acheson (The Last Emperor, Dangerous Liaisons) wowed audiences at every stop. We know the story. Set amid the splendour and seduction of Renaissance Verona, two families are at war. Our lovers reach across the battle lines, with tragic results. This production captures the colour and vitality of the marketplace in which bawdy laughter turns to horror in the blink of an eye, the grandeur of the Capulet palazzo in which...

The cans are empty, the paint dry and the doors open on SHIFT: Urban Art Takeover at Canterbury Museum. Local and international street artists have taken over the empty museum buildings and turned them into five floors of dazzling images and dayglo eye candy. Huge murals jostle for space with traditional graffiti on the walls, while sculptures have sprouted from the floor and whole spaces – both the galleries you’re familiar with and the storerooms and offices you’ve never seen – have been swallowed by immersive installations. International artists include Aches (Dublin, Ireland), SHOK-1 (London, United Kingdom) and ROA (Ghent, Belgium). Kiwi-born creatives Captain Kris (London, UK), Askew One (Oregon, USA) and Ling (Melbourne, Australia) are also in SHIFT’s list of international talent. The all-star line-up continues with artists from around Aotearoa including Benjamin Work, Flox and Sweats, Charles and Janine Williams, Ross Liew, Haser, Tawck, Chimp, Milarky, Berst, Component and...

Perennial hit-maker and former Police frontman Sting will bring his My Songs tour to Christchurch Arena in March and it is going to be a banger! The tour has garnered rave reviews since the first gig, in Paris in May 2019. After a series of postponements and rescheduling prompted by COVID-19, the world tour got back on track last year and headed Down Under in February. Now it is Christchurch’s turn. It’s a family affair for Gordon ‘Sting’ Sumner as well, with his son, Joe Sumner, the opening act and also joining his father for a duet on ‘King of Pain’. The set list is a generous mix of Police classics such as ‘Roxanne’ and ‘Message in a Bottle’ alongside songs as recent as 2021’s ‘If It’s Love’ from the album The Bridge. sting.com

The delays and cancellations are over. Broods, AKA Nelson siblings Georgia and Caleb Nott, sweep into town on 22 April for a gig long in the waiting, thanks to you know what. The gig, at Ngaio Marsh Theatre, is part of a tour in support of their February 2022 album Space Island, considered by some critics as that year’s #1 break-up album. While the mood may be sombre, the beats aren’t, with indie-pop dance bangers ‘Piece Of My Mind’ and ‘Keep’ bringing some light to the dark. Having worked with everyone from Taylor Swift to Sam Smith and wowed crowds at Lollapalooza and Coachella, the duo are now based in Los Angeles. Both are stoked, though, to be coming home and bringing their show with them. “We’ve missed you and we can’t bloody wait to hang and sway and sing and dance,” they have told fans. broodsmusic.com

They’re tough down in Dunners. Despite funding cuts and COVID, the Fringe Festival show must go on. The annual festival is open to anyone, any form of creative expression and any level of experience. This year’s programme features stand-up comedy, theatre, live music and interactive installations. The internationals are back, with artists from Scotland, Switzerland, Canada and Australia joining Aotearoa’s zaniest in presenting over 60 events from 16 – 26 March. Events take place in everything from theatres to bars, museums to churches, cycleways to shop windows across Dunedin and its suburbs. Launched in 2000, the festival has been embraced by locals and visitors alike. Over 27,000 people attended events in 2021. Last year the festival went ahead, although with cancellations due to pandemic restrictions. The viability of the 2023 festival was threatened by a funding cut that left a $150,000 hole in the budget, including money to pay the artists....

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s first concert in Ōtautahi Christchurch in 2023, Brandenburg, features four works by Baroque music giants Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel and Georg Philipp Telemann. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 continues to mesmerise listeners for its timeless beauty and boldness. A highlight of the piece will be its soloist, NZSO Section Principal Flute Bridget Douglas, who will accompany the Orchestra at The Piano on 14 March. “I've been enamoured with Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 ever since I was introduced to it at high school,” says Bridget. “It’s beautifully intimate chamber music at its absolute best.” Telemann’s Viola Concerto is one of his most famous compositions and one of the first known concertos written specifically for viola. NZSO Associate Principal Alexander McFarlane will be the soloist for this ground-breaking work. Brandenburg also features another superb Telemann orchestral work, his Overture Suite La Changeante, and Handel’s Concerto Grosso...

SailGP is coming to Lyttelton Harbour in March, the first time these insanely fast catamarans have raced in New Zealand, and everything is pointing to thrills and spills on the water and party time on the hard. It’s Season 3 of the event. Already racing has been held in eight centres, from Bermuda in May last year to Singapore in January. The New Zealand team, skippered by Peter Burling, came out on top in that event, cementing their position as the main threat to Tom Slingsby’s charge for a third straight season title for Australia. Lyttelton’s former reputation as a partying port town will no doubt get a new lease on life during the event. And what can’t fit into Lyttelton will spill over to Christchurch, so expect the bars to be pumping! SailGP has been likened to Formula 1 on water. Nine teams compete in short, sharp fleet races close...

Imagine a glorious riot of people and performers mingling in The Arts Centre’s Market Square before forming a procession and parading through the former University of Canterbury precinct to the North Quad. That will be the scene on the opening night of Off Centre, a three-day festival on March 3-5 of music, comedy, theatre, food and entertainment that will take over The Arts Centre Te Matatiki Toi Ora and celebrate its restoration. It’s a chance for the people of Christchurch to symbolically reclaim what before the earthquakes was a vibrant jewel of the central city. The free event begins at 6pm. Performers will give a taste of what is to come over the weekend before leading the parade to North Quad. Spoiler alert: for those who join the parade, expect some surprises along the way. What follows opening night is a two-day programme jam-packed with more than 50 events from over...

As one door closes, another opens. In April, Canterbury Museum will close its doors for five years for a major redevelopment and a pop-up museum will open on the first floor of the nearby CoCA building. The Museum closed temporarily on January 3 and a team of street artists moved in to take over the space for the exhibition SHIFT: Urban Art Takeover. Once that exhibition ends in April, the doors will close till 2028. The Museum will lease the CoCA Centre of Contemporary Art Toi Moroki building at 66 Gloucester Street from early February. About half the space will be dedicated to temporary exhibitions and the other half given over to highlights from the Museum’s permanent galleries. “At the end of last year we were encouraging people to come and farewell their favourites but the good news is that a few of those favourites will be shifting only just down the...

Dance music has a new home in Christchurch. After proving itself with Groove Armada’s gig in November, Queen Elizabeth II Park will host Fatboy Slim this Friday and then Netsky & Friends in February. Keeping the action out east, Basement Jaxx bring their beats to nearby Rawhiti Domain in March. The acts are among a slew of big names heading to Christchurch over the next few months, giving fans of everything from psychedelic pop to classic jazz something to get excited about. This weekend is one of the biggies – Fatboy Slim on Friday, Great Kiwi Beer Fest on Saturday and then Cowboy Junkies on Sunday for a quiet come-down. There’s even some clashes. Blues legend Zucchero goes up against homegrown heroes Broods on April 22. Groove Armada’s November gig, which attracted about 5000 punters, was the first major event at Queen Elizabeth II Park since the February 2011 earthquakes caused...

How fitting – Tiny Ruins are the headliners at a festival to celebrate the restoration from big ruin to full glory of Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre. Called Off Centre, the festival is a weekend extravaganza of vibrant entertainment on 3-5 March 2023. A jam-packed programme of more than 50 events from over 250 local artists will offer something for everyone, from kids’ activities, street performance, circus, spoken word, theatre and dance through to classical music, local bands and some well-known names in the New Zealand music industry. www.artscentre.org.nz

Celebration is synonymous with a toast. So why when everyone else gets a glass of something special do our best friends miss out? Thanks to Wigram Brewing Co, that social dilemma is a thing of the past. Now your good boy or girl can have a brew of their own. Be assured – Wigram’s Dog Beer contains no alcohol, hops or barley. No added salt either. Right from its launch, the brew has had a good reaction from dog owners. Wigram co-founder Paul McGurk says some are concerned at first about how healthy it is. Paul is reassuring there. “It has to be safe and it is. Mind you, how bad can it be – they lick their own arses don’t they?” wigrambrewing.co.nz

Ecologist Dr Jaz Morris of Boffa Miskell looks at how public landscaping is helping native species to thrive and recover. Go back 50 or even 20 years ago and most public landscaping reflected a colonial approach to nature. These spaces were more often characterised by stately English trees, hybrid roses and manicured lawns rather than the complex, rich mosaic of New Zealand’s native flora. More recently, natives are often the centrepiece of urban plantings, although many botanists would point out that ‘native’ doesn’t necessarily mean local and that some of the most hardy and popular native species are now seen in parks and alongside pavements from Kerikeri to Dunedin – far beyond where they originally grew. In urban plantings, landscape architects can choose from a wide range of native species to suit the desired form and location – or even to take advantage of an opportunity to boost rare native plant...

A friend in need is a friend indeed. But if it’s always them being needy, how’s that working for you? We all have one, the friend we never hear from unless they need to vent for 30 minutes on the latest injustice in their life. If you’re lucky you might get a perfunctory ‘And how are you?’ towards the end but you know they are just being polite. In the language of Marie Kondo, does this friend spark joy for you? If not, maybe it’s time for a declutter, a checking in with yourself on who should be in and who should be out of your social circle for 2023. Time away from your routine is the ideal for such contemplation. It’s when we get away from the daily grind that we gain some perspective on the quality of our friendships. Where do you find joy? Who energises you? Who drains...