Category: Arts & Culture
Few others could rival the 6 April opening night in Auckland of the three year old African Film Festival. In the roomy foyer of the Newmarket Rialto, hand drums beat irresistibly while high pings of the Nigerian m’bira (thumb organ) fluttered and resonant bass notes boomed happily from a shakr’a (gourd bass). Weaving through all […]
Christian Rock musician Trey Pearson’s new video features two men kissing in a church. Trey Pearson came out to fans in an emotional letter last May, causing him to be dropped by Joshua Fest, which he says would have made him the first openly gay artist ever to play a major Christian music festival. He says […]
Sir Ian McKellen has opened up about growing up gay in Britain before the partial-decriminalisation of homosexuality. The short film, part of a series called Random Acts, sees the legendary actor explaining that life as a gay person in the 40s and 50s was “a terrible oppression.” The four-minute film was directed by filmmaker Joe Stephenson […]
BOYS, adapted from Greg McGee’s Foreskin’s Lament, is our state of the nation play about masculinity. Using contemporary material ranging from the Chiefs ‘stripper scandal’ to Wellington College’s recent online incident, award-winning theatre-makers Eleanor Bishop and Julia Croft and a group of sixteen young people from Auckland take New Zealand’s iconic locker room play and ask “what […]
A work-in-progress edit of the documentary PRIDE? screened at the BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival in March to great reception, but in order to get it finished and reach a wider audience, a crowdfunding campaign has been launched. The UK film is an exploration of what Pride means in a world of increased visibility and acceptance […]
Scarlett Johansson’s live-action film version of Ghost in the Shell is facing allegations of queer-baiting and straight-washing. When fans first learned that American actress Scarlett Johansson would play the role of Japanese anti-terrorism investigator Major Motoko Kusanagi in the film version, many objected to the white-washing of an Asian story. But now film writer David Opie has pointed […]
express talks to Kyle Jardine, arguably South Africa’s hottest export and cast-member of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. What made you want to get into theatre? I was fortunate enough to be exposed and involved in theatre from a young age, from school productions, to watching shows and musicals on our local stages and, […]
express interviewed Alex Taylor, a leading young composer who’s championing anarchic and vibrant opera for a younger generation. Performing in the upcoming show of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, we found out everything from what it has been like re-working the music, how the audience will react to the performance, and who came up with the costumes! What has […]