The Spinoff’s top picks of events from around the motu.
Being an adult can be pretty boring and relentless. The to-do list never abates – the washing gets dirty, more dishes stack up and each week at work brings fresh new horrors. We get stuck in a holding pattern of trying to get through all this muck before rewarding ourselves with actually enjoying life. What has become increasingly apparent to me that the muck is ever-growing and untameable, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life polishing a turd. This weekend, I am boycotting chores, and will instead be trying to be happy.
Korero: Michele Leggott & Catherine Field-Dodgson on Groundwork
Elma Turner Library, 27 Halifax Street, Nelson
2pm Saturday, August 2
Free
Writers speak publicly surprisingly often, and it is often surprising good, considering their chosen mode is technically silent. The Nelson Historical Society has asked the authors of a new beautiful book about one of New Zealand’s important but overlooked botanical artists, Groundwork: The Art and Writing of Emily Cumming Harris, to speak at the Elma Turner Library on Saturday.
The book was over a decade in the making, and involved the authors Michele Leggott and Catherine Field-Dodgson fossicking around historical archives to read her letters and diaries, and encounter the paintings in the flesh. For Leggott this is not so straight forward – she is blind. And so working together also included Field-Dodgson as a sort of visual audio translator. How did this process result in the shifting ground between biography and imagineered monograph that the book inhabits?
Whangārei
Music: Railway Pie & Emily Joy
ONEONESIX, 116a Bank Street, Whangārei
7pm Friday, August 1
$20
Railway Pie is our only remaining 1960s jug band – yes, one of the instruments is a glass jug.
Leigh
Music: Carnivorous Plant Society
Sawmill Cafe, 142 Pakiri Rd, Leigh, Auckland
4:30pm Saturday, August 2
$35
Hear, and feel, a new and long-awaited body of work called “The Lizard”.
Tāmaki Makaurau
Film: FAM: Film Festival Edition
Karangahape Road, Auckland
2pm Saturday, August 2
Free
K’ Road will transform into a living, breathing cinema with films popping up in arcades, alleyways, shopfronts and all kinds of unexpected corners.
Film: The Doctor’s Wife
Lecture theatre 201-393, B201, 10 Symonds Street, University of Auckland
6pm Thursday, July 31
Free
A feature-length documentary on a retired cardiac surgeon from New Zealand leading 40 medical missions to Gaza and the West Bank to operate on children with heart disease.
Hamilton
Exhibition: Once Upon A Time, Peter Dornauf
Grey Street Gallery, 718 Grey Street, Hamilton East
9am – 3pm daily, until August 7
Free
Peter Dornauf paints the Waikato and a series of symbolic motifs.
Tauranga
Workshop: Blind Emboss Printmaking
The Incubator Creative Hub, The Historic Village, 17th Avenue, Tauranga
10am Saturday, August 2
$60
Eduardo Sanchez Ojeda will guide you through the steps to make your own plate and finished print.
New Plymouth
Comedy: The Baroness, Hayley Sproull
Theatre Royal, TSB Showplace, 92 Devon St West, New Plymouth
7:30pm Friday, August 1
$45
“Sky-rocketing towards 40, with a happily untenanted womb and a life of love, leisure and lingus, Hayley Sproull feels less barren, and more… Baroness.”
Wellington
Music: Jazmine Mary I Want To Rock And Roll Album Release Tour
Meow, 9 Edward Street, Te Aro, Wellington
8pm Thursday, July 31
$30
“Be prepared to be met by either a clown, a popstar, a pilgrim farmer or a nightgown-clad ghost howling brazenly onstage.” – VICE
Timaru
Theatre: Hello, Dolly! the Musical
The Playhouse Drama League Inc, 198 Church St, Timaru
Wednesday – Sunday evenings until August 9
$45-$55
A charming story about second chances at love.
Ōtautahi
Workshop: Bookmaking for Beginners
Risingholme Learning, 22 Cholmondeley Ave, Christchurch
10am Saturday, August 2
$110
Learn to make lovely little books!
Lyttelton
Music: Ringlets Album Release Tour
Wunderbar, 14 Canterbury Street, Lyttelton
8pm Friday, August 1
$25-$30
Tāmaki Makaurau post-punks Ringlets are celebrating the release of their sophomore album ‘The Lord Is My German Shepherd (Time for Walkies)’.
Ōtepoti
Music: Dunedin Double – Avdk X Achtung!
The Crown Hotel, 179 Rattray Street, Dunedin
8pm Friday, August 1
$10-$15
If you feel like some alt-indie-rock or alt-punk for your Friday evening.
Cromwell
Misc: Radio Yacht Sailing
Lake Dunstan Boating Club, 7 McNulty Inlet, Cromwell
1pm Sundays
Free
To me it looks lovely and peaceful; the description, however, says “as thrilling as the America’s Cup.”
Invercargill
Exhibition: Play 4
He Waka Tuia, 2 Kelvin Street, Invercargill
10am – 5pm Monday – Friday, 11am – 2.30pm Saturday – Sunday until August 3
Free
Nine vibrant and interactive zones to ignite creativity, imagination and joy in tamariki (and tamariki at heart). Escape the screens and stress of life.
Exhibition: Inside Aronui, Healing and Therapy through Creative Expression
Arts Murihiku (Whare Taupua), 34 Forth Street, Invercargill
10am – 4pm Tuesday – Saturday until August 31
Free
A powerful art exhibition showcasing creativity, strength and healing journeys.
