The 7-8pm hour on Sunday evenings on RNZ National features a news bulletin followed by One In Five – “a programme exploring the issues and experience of disability”. This is followed at 7:35pm with Voices – “a weekly programme that highlights Asians, Africans, indigenous Americans and more, from Iraq to India to Indonesia and East Asia, spanning Morocco to Madagascar, Belize to Brazil. These are our local-born and immigrant ethnic minority communities, New Zealanders with stories to share”. In this recording:
One in Five:
I am an Artist:
Christchurch dancer Michael Krammer has been looking at posters of himself plastered throughout the city centre. “It’s been very humbling to see myself around Christchurch on all street corners thinking ‘I know that person.’” Michael is one of five people selected to be the public faces of a nationwide campaign to promote artists who happen to have a disability.
The I am an Artist campaign aims to change attitudes towards people with a disability, sensory impairment or mental illness.
Michael, who has lived experience of autism, has been dancing with Jolt Dance for 12 years. “It’s a way that people like me can express themselves through different movements.” He says his involvement with Jolt has given him fantastic opportunities, built his confidence, has given him a sense of belonging and has made him feel that he is, in fact, a dancer. Michael hopes the I am an Artist campaign will help people realise that anyone can be an artist whether they have a disability or not.
Arts Access Aotearoa has organised the social change campaign with funding from the Ministry of Social Development’s Making a Difference fund.
The executive director of Arts Access Aotearoa Richard Benge says the campaign also wants to throw the spotlight on the studios and organisations around New Zealand that support the artists.
“What I am really concerned about is that there needs to be more support for creative spaces because they are often under-appreciated and under-funded.” - Richard Benge
He says there needs to be a greater understanding of the value of creative spaces and what they achieve for the artists and for their families.
Kamini Nair came to live in Hamilton from Fiji ten years ago.
Every Wednesday you’ll find her at Sandz Gallery and Studio painting vibrant flowers that remind her of her homeland.
Kamini is a prolific artist who delights in selling her work. Sandz manager Samuel Nickalls says Kamini has a real sense of who she is and what her art practise is, “She makes beautiful, gorgeous, luscious paintings of flowers”.
Voices:
Sattriya Dance - The international language of gesture:
Lynda Chanwai-Earle meets award winning international Sattriya performer Dr Menaka Bora to learn more about one of India's eight classical dance forms.
Indian music, food and dance lit up Wellington at Diwali recently when a renowned dance troupe from northeast India helped celebrate the annual Diwali Festival of Lights. Diwali or Deepavali symbolises the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil.
Diwali is an ancient Hindu festival celebrated around the globe.
Lighting small oil-filled lamps (diyas) or candles symbolizes the inner light within people. Families and the community gathered with fireworks, the sharing of sweets and to worship the goddess of love, wealth and prosperity; Lakshmi. It’s an opportunity for the 15,000 or so Wellington residents of Indian heritage to share their culture with the wider public.
The internationally renowned Sattriya Dance Theatre from Assam took the main stage at the TSB Arena in Wellington alongside local performers at the annual Diwali Mela festival.
Sattriya is one of India’s eight classical dance forms. The Sattriya dance form was originally created in the 15th century for performance in monasteries in Assam. Previously only men could perform but now it is widely practiced amongst men and women throughout India.
The Sattriya Dance Theatre was led by Dr Menaka Bora, an award-winning dancer, choreographer and ethno-musicologist who has performed around the globe. Dr Bora is currently an artist-in-residence at Oxford University. Sponsored by the Asia New Zealand Foundation to perform during the weekend celebrations of Diwali, the Sattriya Group also performed at two Wellington region schools; Waterloo and Amesbury School – part of the Foundation’s network of schools. Dr Bora’s dance troupe comprises of her mother, another renowned dancer and two monks (in pristine white and gold) who play accompanying drums and cymbals.
Meeting Dr Bora backstage between items, I was struck by her elegant, peacock blue costume, trimmed with real gold thread and precious stones and embroidered by an ethnic group of weavers distinctly Assamese. Dr Bora’s eyes are striking too, accentuated with eyeliner.
“I started learning as little as two because my mother was of my main teachers, she’s a professional Indian classical dancer, an exponent of three styles in India. I used to watch my mother and her students and lots of artists used to come to our house and learn ... that is how I remember learning these traditional classical forms.”
Dr Bora tells me that her eyes, hands and feet are her tools of expression, and she demonstrates by showing me Wellington’s harbour, the sea, the sky and the breeze with deceptively simple gestures that cut across any language or cultural barriers. Next she shows me how to evoke a crocodile with just two arms and precise gestures from her classical Sattriya training again. I’m transported by this elegant and universal language, a language that could be performed in complete silence.