for school casts – including two very familiar faces

Acting up... Ahead of appearing in the annual Westlakes Shakespeare production, Arlo (left) and sister Frankie took school-holiday time out with dad and acting coach Peter Feeney on a break in Queensland to help it appeal more to modern audiences: Think a Woodstock-inspired forest, full of vibrant colours and sounds.

In all, As You Like It involves nearly 80 students from both schools, including a cast of 17 males and 22 females. Most were auditioned late last year, with some students who were new to the schools added early this year, before rehearsals got under way in earnest.

A combined crew of 40 is handling tech, props, makeup and costumes, and coaching choreography.

Milburn describes the production as “the perfect tonic for this grey and wet winter”. The play ends in a jubilant dance medley, which the cast enjoyed putting together.

UK choreographer Darren Royston who has worked with big names in the West End, gave tips to the student team on a recent New Zealand visit.

He is a friend of Westlake Boys head of drama Nick Brown, who also got him to help with the combined schools’ other big production this year, the musical Into the

Woods, which has a different cast and was being staged this week.

Feeney says the standard and scale of big school productions like these are the perfect introduction for anyone wanting to go on to a performing arts careers or just stretch themselves. “There is just everything they need to know as professional actors... it’s the best training.”

• As You Like It, 25-29 July at Westlake Girls High School Events Centre. Book at iticket.co.nz

Bridging cultures... This carved doorpiece is colourfully painted in a traditional Korean style known as dancheong, in a North Shore collaboration between carver

Cultures collide in artistic collaboration

A new art exhibition that blends Maori and Korean styles is on at Shore City in Takapuna, timed to coincide with Matariki season.

North Shore artists Chloe Jeong and master carver Natanahira Pona have combined their respective talents to bring together the Harmony in Culture show, which involves five other artists as well as their own joint and individual works.

Jeong has painted Pona’s whakairo carvings in dancheong, combining the two traditional styles. Dancheong is a colourful Korean way of painting significant wooden buildings with symbolic decorations.

Pona, who works and tutors from Lake House Arts, is a driving force in local Matariki celebrations.

The pair met at the Lake House, where Jeong acts as a Korean ambassador for the centre. Through the centre and the Korean Arts and Culture organisation she has tapped into a creative-communities scheme to mount the show, which she describes as a “unique collaboration” exploring the connection of cultures.

It is being held at Shore City’s ground floor Watershed Gallery.

The Observer spoke with Jeong and fellow painter Dal Kim while both were hanging their works ahead of the exhibition opening last weekend.

Kim, who moved to New Zealand as a teenager in 1994, said he was pleased to join this exhibition as it had helped him represent his identity artistically.

Having trained as an architect at the University of Auckland, Kim now works in the social welfare sector.

His eye for composition is evident in a twilight sky over Auckland city and a view of Rangitoto.

As well as the landscapes, which meld Korean patterns and colours into local settings, he has reinterpreted portraits of Māori.

“It all puts the pieces together,” he says of his developing art practice and exploring where he came from. “I was moulded into a person of two different cultures.”

Jeong, who trained in China in classical painting and also attended Elam Arts School after moving to New Zealand in 2018, said Matariki and New Zealand’s bicultural emphasis provided a chance to broaden harmony and understanding.

Celebrating New Year, a reverence for the natural world and looking to the stars are something the cultures have in common, she says.

“We are all under one sky,” says Kim. • Harmony in Culture is on display until 28 July at the Watershed Gallery in Shore City, Takapuna.