New Zealand

IV

Culture

The earliest cultural tradition in New Zealand was that of the Maori, who developed a rich and diverse Polynesian culture in geographic isolation from the other cultures of Polynesia. European settlers brought with them their own traditions, which eventually dominated the country’s cultural life. Since the 1950s the cultural fabric of New Zealand has become increasingly diverse with the immigration of peoples from the Pacific Islands and Asia.

Traditional Maori culture is expressed in song, dance, oratory, woodcarving, weaving, and architecture. Maori artists also bring Maori perspectives to canvas painting, fiction and poetry writing, and other art forms. The Maori have made a concerted effort to preserve their culture. In the 1980s they initiated a revival of their language and other traditions. By that time many Maori had assimilated into the predominant European culture. The majority of Maori had become urban dwellers, and most younger Maori did not know the Maori language. Today Maori culture thrives in both traditional and reinvented traditions.

Cultural activity among people of European descent, who are known as Pakeha in New Zealand, has long been strong, but until recently tended to follow British models. Cultural output was high in both quality and quantity. It was complicated by strong links with Britain, however, because London was in many respects the cultural capital of New Zealand. The most acclaimed New Zealand artists produced their famous works as expatriates in England. Artists and writers who stayed in New Zealand tended to feel alienated from, and unappreciated by, overseas European society. Even expatriate artists, however, explored their New Zealand roots. In the second half of the 20th century, Pakeha culture developed in its own right, producing many notable writers and artists whose works draw on the New Zealand experience.

The government of New Zealand helps fund and promote the arts, literature, and music through an arts council known as Creative New Zealand (formerly the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand), established in 1964.

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A

Literature

The modern literary canon of New Zealand was founded by Katherine Mansfield, one of the 20th-century’s greatest short-story writers. Mansfield launched her writing career in England, but the influence of her New Zealand upbringing pervades her work. Female writers have long predominated in New Zealand fiction writing, especially the novel. Janet Frame, Keri Hulme, Margaret Mahy, Margaret Sutherland, Fiona Kidman, and Sylvia Ashton-Warner are just a few of New Zealand’s many acclaimed female writers. Important male writers include Maurice Shadbolt, Maurice Gee, Witi Ihimaera, Vincent O’Sullivan, and Owen Marshall. Along with Hulme and Ihimaera, contemporary Maori writers include Patricia Grace and Alan Duff. Maori-authored works such as Grace’s Mutuwhenua (1978) address difficult questions of biculturalism and the survival of the Maori community and culture.

James K. Baxter, author of Beyond the Palisade (1944) and other poetry collections, is widely regarded as New Zealand’s preeminent poet. Maori poet Hone Tuwhare published the first major Maori poems in English, drawing on his Maori oral tradition and urban working-class life. His direct, lyrical verse and command of the vernacular are evident in his collections No Ordinary Sun (1964) and Sapwood and Milk (1973).

The oral literary tradition is a vital part of Maori society. Traditional Maori literature consists of history, tales, poems, and legends, all of which have been preserved through the generations by oral recitation. The Polynesian ancestors of the Maori established tribal kin groups in defined territories, following Polynesian custom. Each group produced a complex oral tradition concerning all aspects of its life. Some traditions were exclusive to the Maori tribe that composed them; others came to be known and used universally. The strikingly poetic language of the compositions aided their memorization and recitation. The main types of composition are whakapapa (genealogy), karakia (incantations), korero (narratives), whakatauki (sayings), and waiata (sung poetry).

B

Performing Arts and Cinema

New Zealand’s first professional theater for the dramatic arts, an intimate community theater, opened in Wellington in 1964. The city continues to be the country’s strongest performing-arts center, although Auckland also has a lively theater scene. Drama was long considered an underdeveloped genre of New Zealand writing. Playmarket, a professional writer’s agency founded in the early 1970s, encouraged the writing, production, and performance of New Zealand plays. Playwright Roger Hall produced Playmarket’s first major commercial successes, Glide Time (1976) and Middle-Age Spread (1977), bringing widespread recognition to New Zealand’s community theater movement. The play Foreskin’s Lament (1980), by Greg McGee, was also an important benchmark.

In classical dance, ballerina Rowena Othlie Jackson established an international reputation in the 1950s that has yet to be surpassed in New Zealand. Along with Jackson, Alex Grant and Bryan Ashbridge became outstanding dancers of the British Royal Ballet. Douglas Wright became the country’s pioneering exponent of modern dance. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, established in 1946 as the National Orchestra, is the most successful of the country’s major national artistic organizations. New Zealand-born opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa is known as one of the world’s leading sopranos.

Maori cultural performances include traditional dances such as kapa haka, performed by large singing and dancing ensembles. More than 70 of the best ensembles perform in national competition at the Maori Aotearoa Performing Arts Festival, held in various host cities since 1972.

New Zealand filmmakers were active in the early days of cinema, producing about 20 feature films in the 1920s and 1930s. Rudall Hayward is remembered as the country’s most pioneering feature filmmaker during those years. Few films were produced from the 1940s until the early 1970s, when New Zealand filmmaking began to experience a renaissance. Since then many feature films have been produced, some with the help of the government Film Commission, established in 1978. Directors Jane Campion, Lee Tamahori, Vincent Wright, and Peter Jackson have produced some of New Zealand’s most well-known contemporary films, including Campion’s The Piano (1993); Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994) and The Lord of the Rings, a film trilogy based on the epic works of writer J. R. R. Tolkien; and Tamahori’s Once Were Warriors (1994), based on the novel by Alan Duff.

C

Visual Arts and Crafts

The New Zealand painting and sketching tradition dates from early European settlement. Before the camera became commonplace, artists recorded the realities of the land and its people on canvas. This developed into a strong landscape-painting tradition. Painters adapted in various ways to the New Zealand environment, particularly its brilliant light. Frances Hodgkins was the most internationally successful New Zealand artist of the first half of the 20th century. Since then painters such as Toss Woollaston, Rita Angus, and Colin McCahon have brought New Zealand painting into its own. Maori painter Ralph Hotere is one of the country’s most highly acclaimed contemporary artists. Cartooning is another strong visual art in New Zealand; David Low and Murray Ball are the best known of many fine cartoonists.

New Zealand also has a strong handicraft tradition, with many artisans producing jewelry, pottery, blown glass, loom-woven textiles, and other works that blur craft and art. Traditional Maori crafts such as woodcarving have immense cultural significance. The most stunning examples of Maori woodcarving are in the marae, or communal meetinghouses, where every carved wall panel has a symbolic significance. Contemporary Maori woodcarvers, notably Cliff Whiting, blend traditional and modern forms.

D

Libraries and Museums

New Zealand has more than 260 libraries, most of them part of a well-established and well-used public library system. The National Library in Wellington incorporates the leading research library, the Alexander Turnbull Library. Other important collections are held by the National Archives in Wellington, the Auckland Public Library, and the Hocken Library in Dunedin. The universities of Auckland, Otago, and Canterbury have large collections.

The new national museum of New Zealand, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (commonly known as Te Papa), opened in Wellington in 1998. This national museum features cutting-edge exhibits on New Zealand’s culture, history, and natural environment. The Auckland War Memorial Museum is the country’s other large and well-visited museum. Both museums attract more than 1 million visitors a year. New Zealand also has about 400 small museums and art galleries, many of them showing works of local artists.