Pati Solomona Tyrell’s sensationaal St Paul St show Fāgogo is discussed this week. Sione Monu, Pati Solomona Tyrell, and Manu Vaea caught up with Rachel for a chat. Fāgogo in Sāmoan refers to fables that are told to people in a shared context. The receiver of a fāgogo is vested with an expectation to pass on the story, making it their own and then passing it on. This oral tradition is sustained from generation to generation and acts as a transmission tool for ideology but also as a genealogical archive for shared historical and cultural context. A fāgogo can mirror the real world in ways that transcend contemporary life, through cultural imperatives that pre-date Western beliefs and value systems.
Renowned anthropologist Dame Anne Salmond’s new book, Tears of Rangi, is a philosophical and historical exploration of interactions and colliding worlds. Beginning with an inquiry into the early period of encounters between Māori and Europeans in New Zealand, she then investigates such clashes and exchanges in key areas of contemporary life – waterways, land, the sea and people. Our world is defined by maps and calendars – making it seem that this is the nature of reality itself. But in New Zealand, concepts of whakapapa and hau, complex networks and reciprocal exchange, may point to new ways of understanding interactions between peoples, and between people and the natural world. Reporter Pearl Little speaks to Dame Salmond about the book.
Today in Dear Science, Ximena, Will and Reuben get down to the nitty gritty of some intriguing stories with AUT’s Allan Blackman. Allan takes us back in time to 1858 when Queen Victoria sent the first official transatlantic telegram to US President James Buchanan. We get into the nuts and bolts of the debate around alternative medicine, talking about a new study that finds cancer patients who turn to alternative treatments are 2.5 times more likely to die. Finally, Allan tells us about how art historians may be shocked to find out that a pigment used in analysing the legitimacy of historic artwork may have been incorrectly identified up until now.
Historically political leaders and the citizens of the United States had turned toward a civil service after being fed up with the spoils system and other problems arising from private companies running those services. With the return to privatizing government services, Jon Michaels suggests the US is facing a deeper problem.in the form of a potential constitutional coup. Maria Armoudian spoke with Michaels about his new book “Constitutional Coup: Privatization’s Threat to the American Republic.
Mike tells Zoë about the ordeal with the anklet and the necklaces and all the appropriate characters, however Zoë gets down to business with suggestions for your theatre fix. For a New York critic's pick you can head along to Homos, or Everyone in America at the Q Theatre Loft, or if you're after something a little historical, you can head to Auckland Shakespeare in the Park's Twelfth Night and Henry V at the Pumphouse Theatre. Both sound magical.
Today on the Greendesk Bronnie spoke to representatives from School Strikes for Climate New Zealand about their online strike event this Friday. May 15th will be the fourth time New Zealand youths will strike, inspired by Swedish teengager GretaThunberg’s “Friday’s for Future” movement. Coco Lovatt from Avondale College and Oli Morphew from Wellington Girls’ College were both involved with the historical strikes last September which saw 170,000 people take to the streets nationwide.
You can join the online strike this Friday May 15th by going along to their Facebook event. They are also encouraging people to sign their open letter to the government to adopt a Green Covid Response, and also the Greenpeace petition to the same effect.
Justin and the new Health Minister Andrew Little discussed about the new Cabinet, the cannabis referendum, his priorities for the health portfolio, and should there be more transparency in the historical operations of the SIS.
Karanama Ruru spoke to Dr Rowan Light, a history professor at the University of Auckland, about how New Zealanders have historically remembered the past, and how that has effected how Kiwis view Aotearoas past today.
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