Latest news with #Lōemis
RNZ News
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
New music for the silent Len Lye film, Tusalava
Composer Andrew_Faletau Photo: 2025 Nick George Creative, all rights reserved. Artist Len Lye was known for not only his kinetic sculptures, but also his experimental films. One of his best known films is Tusalava - an animated black and white short form film showing the evolution of a cellular creature. The work was created in 1929 and while the film still exists the sound track has been lost. However Samoan composer Andrew Faleatua has written a new composition to be performed with the film as part of Wellington's midwinter arts festival Lōemis. He joins Kathryn to talk about writing the new music for a piece that heavily features Māori and Pacific motifs. Tusalava will be played along with a number of other silent, avant-garde films, featuring new scores played by the music ensemble Stroma at Wellington's Roxy Cinema, Monday 16 June.
RNZ News
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RNZ News
Freshen the mind with a Gong Bath
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions. Erika Grant and her sonic medicine kit. Photo: Holly Fenwick / Supplied It was burnout that lead to the gongs. Burnout, and a bit of luck. Erika Grant is a 'gong bath' practitioner, playing the percussion instruments in a way that washes over the listener and helps to ease a fractured mind. Her gongs will form part of a Listening Occasion in this year's Lōemis midwinter festival in Wellington with Berlin-based performer Lou Drago. Speaking to RNZ Concert, Grant said she turned to the gongs after suffering burnout after touring overseas with the music group, Orchestra of Spheres. She'd heard about using the sound of softly played gongs to reduce stress, and came across a beautiful set of the instruments which belonged to the Wellington percussionist Simon O'Rorke. "I asked if I could borrow them, and he said 'no'." But several years later, when O'Rorke decided to sell them, Grant was the first person he contacted. Ready to wash over you. Photo: Erika Grant Grant is passionate about the healing potential of gong sound, which she believes relaxes the mind because a typical gong beat creates lots of harmonics. Harmonics are the sound waves that vibrate above the basic tone of any instrument, or voice. Every voice or instrument has different harmonics - it's how we're able to tell an oboe and a flute apart even if they're playing the same note. But Grant also says it's important to be careful when dispensing gong therapy. It's easy for a gong bath to be too loud, which can have the opposite effect on a listener to the relaxation they were hoping for. A little bit of gong can go a long way.
