Fantastic scenery, an appreciation of beauty, and pride in their country seem
to inspire many New Zealanders to become artists. Art comes in many
media--painting, pottery, sculpture, glassware, spinning, weaving, and
woodcarving. Music, theater, ballet, modern dance, literature, filmmaking, and
architecture are also well represented.
Performing and Visual Arts
Drama is alive and well; the two most recognized theaters for professional
live drama are the Mercury Theatre in Auckland and the Downstage
Theatre in Wellington. Music flourishes through the internationally known
National Symphony Orchestra and Brass Band. Government-funded support for the
arts is provided by the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, which also trains
promising dancers and musicians. Regional and community arts councils provide
assistance to amateur groups and individuals and promote the arts throughout New
Zealand. Since 1960 the visual arts have particularly flourished. Pottery,
rapidly becoming an in-demand export, is the favorite, and woolcraft is also
popular--as you'd expect from a country with more than 68 million sheep.
Museums
Display museums are found throughout New Zealand--many specialize in Maori
arts and crafts, history, and culture. The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa
Tongarewa in Wellington features Maori and Pacific exhibits; the Auckland
Museum features zoology, botany, ethnology, and Maori exhibits; the
Canterbury Museum in Christchurch displays New Zealand birds, a diorama of
a historic Christchurch setting, and a planetarium; the Otago Museum in
Dunedin features ethnology, pottery and sculpture, marinelife and skeletons, and
local history.
Architecture
New Zealand architecture generally reflects European and American influences
of the appropriate time; however, many well-preserved pre-European Maori
buildings are still extant, particularly in the north of the North Island. Some
of New Zealand's most beautiful historic homes and buildings, restored and
maintained by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, are open to the public
year-round; small admission charge.
MAORI ART
Sculpture
The most important and sacred Maori art was sculpture, predominantly wood but
also jade, ivory, and whalebone. Trained in the art from an early age, the best
carvers of early Maori society became men of high rank. Only men could become
carvers--women, regarded as inferior, were not even allowed to watch the carvers
at work. The canoe (waka), meeting house (whare whakairo), and food
storehouse (pataka) were the main vehicles for Maori relief sculpture.
Enormous pieces of indigenous timber were deeply carved into highly decorative
spiritual designs, both on the interior and exterior. Well-preserved
woodcarvings, decorative interior panels of woven reed, and painted rafters are
best seen in marae or meeting grounds throughout the country, and all the major
museums feature Maori art. All useful items of the Maori were covered in abstract
designs, inspired by plants (a fern design is fairly common) or symbols, and
inset with abalone shell. The human body, in particular the sacred head, was the
major figurative element. Profiles with birdlike heads were manaia or evil
beings.
The tiki, a spiritual carving of human form representing the Maori
conception of the beginning of life, was worn as a good luck pendant--it has been
mass-produced in all mediums for tourists. Unfortunately, a lot of Maori art is
now machine-made and you have to search for hand-carved original pieces. One of
the best places to see hand-carved works is the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts
Institute at Whakarewarewa, Rotorua, the home of Maori culture. Other areas where
you can find carvers in action are the far north and the east coast of the North
Island, and in the town of Hokitika on the west coast of the South Island.
Body Art
The Maori also decorated their bodies, a custom that the earliest European
visitors found particularly intriguing. Apart from wearing flax cloaks and kilts
decorated with woven borders, tufts of colorful feathers, or dog hair, they
adorned themselves with beautiful greenstone pendants, ear pendants, and combs;
the men painfully carved intricate symmetrical designs (moku) into their
faces and thighs with tiny chisels filled with paint, and the women tattooed
their lower lips and chins. Nowadays you see few authentic tattoos (only on the
very elderly), but they're still effectively painted on for ceremonial
occasions.
Song and Dance
A cultural concert of Maori songs, chants, games, and graceful dances is a
colorful spectacle that shouldn't be missed, especially when combined with a
hangi (Maori feast). Men perform fierce war chants (haka) and women
sing and perform graceful flowing dances, twirling poi. Rotorua is the
best place to go to appreciate Maori culture in all its forms, past and
present.
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