Art snippets
Christmas celebration
It’s that time of year again to pack a picnic, gather your family and head along to the annual Christmas at the Bowl. The outdoor New Plymouth event kicks off at 4.30pm on Sunday, December 10 with food and craft stalls. Pre-show entertainment begins at 6.30pm with Rusty Az followed with a variety show at 8pm and the Powerco Fireworks Spectacular seeing the evening out.
Dance recital
A group of dancers will soon present a weekend filled with colourful costumes and an enormous range of musical genres. The Val Deakin Dance School will hold its annual Dance School Recital on Saturday and Sunday, December 16 and 17. Shows feature children, teens and adults performing a variety of dance styles, including ballet, character, national, modern, tap, comedy and ballroom. There are pieces from famous classical ballets as well as contemporary numbers choreographed especially by Val Deakin for the dancers involved. Performances are at 1pm and 3pm on Saturday and 1pm on Sunday.
Choir carols
Ars Nova Choir’s final concert for the year, A Christmas Celebration, will take place on Saturday, December 9. The Choir, under the direction of Christopher Luke, with Amanda Henry at the piano, will present choral music by Berlioz, Rutter, Mendelssohn and Vaughan Williams with a new exciting arrangement of Ding Dong Merrily On High by William Llewellyn. There will be carols for the audience to sing as well as Christmas poetry and solo organ music to herald in the festive season. The event will take place at St Andrew’s Church.
True lies
A politically natured art exhibition is currently on show in Stratford. See Nothing, Truth/Lie Dichotomy asks the question, what is truth and what is lies? Curated by activist artist Roger Morris the display also shows a number of other artists’ work which looks at how reality is shaped and how people make sense or find truth behind local, national and global events that shape their thinking and view of the world. The Stratford Art Society exhibition opens December 15 at Percy Thomson Gallery.
Govett Brewster Art Gallery/ Len Lye Centre
❚ The Len Lye Centre Cinema screens the 1936 experimental collage film by artist Joseph Cornell, in association with the new exhibition John Stezaker: Lost World, on Saturday, December 9, at 3pm.
❚ Based on the exhibition at the Florence Griswold Museum in Connecticut, the Len Lye Centre Cinema screens The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism on Saturday, December 9, at 4pm.
❚ The Len Lye Centre Cinema screens the documentary This Air is a Material exploring the evolution of Ann Shelton’s artistic process, as one of New Zealand’s first female press photographers, on Sunday, December 10, at 11am.
❚ Take a tour of the new exhibition John Stezaker: Lost World, with the curator Robert Leonard on Sunday, December 10, at 2pm. This collage exhibition has toured to New Plymouth from City Gallery Wellington.
❚ The Len Lye Centre Cinema screens the biopic Michelangelo: Love and Death on Sunday, December 10, at
4pm.
❚ The Len Lye Centre Cinema screens No Ordinary Sheila, the life story of New Zealand writer and illustrator Sheila Natusch, on Thursday.