Those in the know already know about the cool new attractions and hidden gems of Christchurch’s reborn city centre. Our downtown has rebounded from the setbacks of the quakes and Covid-19, emerging as a modern centre of art, architecture, vibrant places and serene spaces. The centre is now abuzz with a hot combo of funky markets, bodacious boutiques, crafty brewers, moody cocktail bars, outrageous street art, acres of green space, state-of-the-art conference digs and streetscapes made for meandering. Then there are the events. Music, theatre, dance, celebrations, exhibitions. Something for everyone in a host of new venues. For the cognoscenti, then, it may come as a surprise to find out that while you know all this, some do not. Some have yet to follow your lead and return to their favourite streets, lanes and boulevards to discover all that is on offer. The Central City Business Association has joined the charge...

Looking for a good time shouldn’t turn into a bad time. Cityscape talks to Joel Faulkner, Christchurch regional manager of drug-checking service Know Your Stuff. What does Know Your Stuff do? KnowYourStuffNZ provides drug checking and drug-related harm reduction services across New Zealand. How do you do it? For drug checking we use an FTIR spectrometer and reagents. The spectrometer uses infrared light to read the chemical signature of the substance, which it then checks against food, drug and other relevant substance databases. This machine can't tell the purity of a sample but it can detect when samples have had other substances added to them. Reagents are chemicals that react to certain substances in certain ways. They produce a colour change that can be checked against a list of known reactions. One issue with reagents is that they can't detect the presence of multiple substances in a sample. This is why...

After 20 years of playing festivals here and everywhere, Fat Freddy’s have the drop on how to make the most of the occasion. Saxophonist Scott Towers shares his wisdom. What are you looking forward to this festival season? I guess it’s just having the option to go out as often as possible or as often as you want. That’s the thing I am excited about. And also getting out and supporting promoters and the industry. I’m really conscious that business has been really tough for the last couple of years. Costs have spiralled out of control and promoters can’t really pass that on so they are wearing it. If we want there to be a music and arts scene in New Zealand we need to get out and support them. Electric Avenue will be cool because I’ve never seen Lorde live and I’m really looking forward to that. It’s really different...

Event promoter and nightclub supremo Mitch Ryder has the gig of a lifetime this January – he’s getting married! And he hasn’t even worked out what he is wearing – “Haha I’m not sure, I haven’t even sorted my suit yet.” There’s no dilemma for the committed festival-goer though – he’s pre-loaded this season. “I’ve been all over the show this year. I went to Pitch Festival in Melbourne, ADE in Amsterdam...”Pitch Music & Arts Festival transforms a quiet patch of Victorian countryside into a haven of house, techno, disco and more. ADE (Amsterdam Dance Event) features over 1000 events and 2500 artists over five days in 200 clubs and venues in the Netherlands capital. Now it’s all work and wedding prep for Mitch. With Sam Smith, his partner in promoter Cream Events, he’s in full swing organising the Hidden Lakes festival in Hagley Park as well as its sister event,...

Remember RISE, the epic 2013 street art exhibition at Canterbury Museum that heralded the beginning of Christchurch’s reputation as an urban art capital? If you never got a chance to see it, hold onto your hats, because an even bigger, more epic collaborative exhibition is coming to Canterbury Museum in 2023. SHIFT: Urban Art Takeover will feature art from some of the most prolific street artists in Ōtautahi, New Zealand and around the world, painted directly on the internal walls, floors and ceiling of the almost-empty museum ahead of its closure for redevelopment. It will be staged across five floors and over 35 spaces inside the museum – including storerooms, corridors, offices, even the basement – that aren’t normally accessible to the public. Visitors will take a winding, two-hour journey through the museum, surrounded by urban art on all sides. All proceeds from the exhibition will go towards the museum’s $205...

Returning favourites Laser Kiwi, Pedro Tochas, Fraser Hooper, Kozo Kaos, Sport Suzie, Paul Klass and 55 times Guinness World Record holder Space Cowboy feature in the 2023 Bread & Circus World Buskers Festival, which takes to the streets and stages of Ōtautahi from 13 to 29 January, 2023. The festival will celebrate its 30th birthday with a programme of breath-taking busking and special events. Newcomers include modern clown duo The Twins Trip; award-winning and action-packed spy-fi comedy show Her Majesty’s Secret Service; and Jason Maher, street magician. As well as the much-loved street performances, special events in 2023 include the famous Festival Galas at the Isaac Theatre Royal. The fizzy Bread & Circus Brewery Tour returns, as does free street event the New Regent Street Spectacular. Headlining the 2023 festival is The Purple Rabbit. A perfect storm of world-class misfits will entertain in a ticketed evening of mischief, magic and mind-blowing...

An elegant, sprawling six-bedroom home in Fendalton has cleaned up at the Registered Master Builders House of the Year awards, taking away not only the grand National Supreme House of the Year prize in the over $1m category but nine regional awards as well, including the Regional Kitchen Excellence, Regional Outdoor Living and Regional Interior Design awards. In addition to its six bedrooms, the 924sqm estate boasts four bathrooms, three living areas, a bar, games room, eight-car garage and a swimming pool complete with changing rooms. Something as large as this must be carefully designed to sit in harmony with its surroundings and that goal has certainly been achieved here. Built by Metzger Builders and designed by O'Neil Architecture, the exterior of this home is clad in dark, contemporary tones, with low-slung rooflines and large cantilevered overhangs. The whole house reclines unobtrusively on its 3000sqm site. The interior is opulent but...

Three Boys Brewery recently took home the big Champion Exhibitor award, as well as 12 medals and a trophy at the New Zealand Beer Awards. Cityscape caught up with boss man Ralph Bungard. How did it feel to be awarded champion? It felt amazing! The Brewers’ Guild Beer Awards is a really big deal in our NZ industry. It’s the only awards where you really get to put yourself up for comparison to all the brewers in Aotearoa. To win anything on the night is an honour and something that brewers in New Zealand really look to judge where they are at in terms of beer quality. On the night we were just so excited about all the medals that we had received for the beers that we entered in the competition that we weren’t really concentrating when it came to the big one at the end of the night. To...

Craig ‘Shawsy’ Shaw doesn’t do half measures. His celebration schedule of festivals and concerts over the next few months is busier than some of the acts that will be playing there. “I’m going to the wine festival, the beer festival, Electric Avenue, Rufus du Sol in Auckland, Groove Armada in Auckland, Fat Boy Slim in Christchurch, Billy Joel in Auckland and Elton John in Christchurch.” Nothing definite yet but the keen festival punter and promoter might also be breaking out his DJ skills at a gig or three over the summer. FOMO is behind the gruelling list. “One thing I have learned over the last few years is to not put something off and take for granted that it will still be there later. The risk is too high that it won’t.” So Craig is seizing the days. “The list is a bit longer than usual because there’s so much available....

Christchurch artist Mim Jensen is fizzing about her summer. After gigging their way around the local live scene, Mim and her band are now on the festival circuit, playing the South Island Wine and Food Festival in December and Nostalgia in February. “These gigs will be the first festivals I’ve played so it feels like reaching an awesome milestone for me! They are really cool festivals too!” Mim is looking forward to reaching new fans, hanging out with other bands and creating new memories. “I’ve only been to a couple of small festivals in the past so it will be cool to have that new experience as an up-and-coming artist.” Following the festival gigs, it’s looking like a banger 2023 for Mim and her band. “We are opening for Great Gable for their whole New Zealand tour in February, which is super exciting! “I’m also releasing my debut album next year,...

It’s a bright, joyful scene of summery vibes, spinning ice creams, swan floats and shimmering water. Your eye is drawn to a beautiful figure with long legs, bunny ears and a crown: a princess. And then the thorns start sprouting from her body. This is White Rose, the latest 3D animation work from Auckland-based Korean-New Zealand artist Hye Rim Lee, created as part of SCAPE Public Art Season 2022. It is also the latest work to feature Hye Rim’s animated character, TOKI, who has been part of Hye Rim’s practice since 2002. On the surface, White Rose is a fun, frivolous take on cyber culture – a tongue-in-cheek look at female representation and the male gaze of character design. And it is, but it’s much more, too. TOKI’s journey through these hyper-coloured dreamscapes is a story of escapism and transformation; the story of Hye Rim’s own experiences of grief and the...

Inspired by his family and his faith, Christchurch artist and graphic designer Paul Rees has brought Jesus to High Street. At his Cube Art Gallery in High Street, Paul is exhibiting a collection of 30 paintings and prints that depict aspects of the gospel story from the New Testament. Paul picked up his brushes again during the disruptions of lockdown, culminating in him painting a series of works on the life of Jesus. “Everyone encouraged me to bring them to a wider audience through an exhibition, which was really the moment I decided to create a gallery.” Paul’s own paintings are joined in the exhibition by a range of Old Masters and more recent works that tell the story of Jesus in more detail and variety. He approached museums and art galleries in Aotearoa and overseas and found a lot of support. From Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum came an...

How can we survive the celebration season without undoing a year’s worth of healthy living and exercise? Bevan James Eyles has some tips. We’ve got to think about our approach to the holiday period. Unfortunately for a lot of people they think because it’s my holiday I get to drink every night, I get to eat a bit more and so on. We want to remove ourselves from this idea. I had a client who put on 10kg during the three or four weeks of the holiday period. That’s a massive cost. It took him several months to get back to fitness. We need an attitude of this being a maintenance period with moments of excess. For most people the holiday period is not a time when we are aiming to get fit. Instead, we want to add the least cost for this period. Instead of lots of drinking, eating excessively...

Once again the Royal New Zealand Ballet has assembled the perfect tasting platter of contemporary and traditional dance for its Tutus On Tour programme. For the audience at Saturday’s performance at the Isaac Theatre Royal, there was something for everyone. Excerpts from festive-season favourite The Nutcracker put plenty of tutus on the stage and was a sure-fire winner with the significant number of grandparents and their grandchildren that came along.  Tchaikovsky’s music and Caniparoli’s choreography for ‘Waltz of the Flowers’ was given a kiwiana twist, courtesy of costume designer Patricia Barker, with the dancers draped in layers of red and white chiffon that referenced the flowers of the pohutukawa, Aotearoa’s own Christmas tree. Against that backdrop, Sara Garbowski shone in her role as Dew Drop. For the romantics in the audience, the ‘Grand Pas de Deux’ completed the Nutcracker selection, with Kate Kadow (Sugar Plum Fairy) and Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson (Cavalier) bringing...

Christchurch writer Kate Preece is on a roll. Her delightful children’s book One Weka Went Walking has made it onto Storylines’ annual Notable Book Awards list and she has also won an international short story competition for her beautifully paced Lake Fly. Storylines’ Notable Book Awards provide adult buyers and young readers with annual lists of the 10 best New Zealand books published in one of five genres. Announced each November, they function as a buying guide for families’ Christmas presents, and for schools and libraries. One Weka Went Walking has been included on the non-fiction list, a real coup for Kate and her illustrator, Christchurch architect Pippa Ensor. The book shines a light on the rare and endangered bird species of Rēkohu Chatham Islands. Hot on the heels of that announcement comes the news that Kate’s short story Lake Fly has taken out ‘The Story I Needed to Have Read’...

Local favourites Coriander’s, Boo Radley's, Cafe Valentino, Sun Dog Diner and Mumbaiwala are among the diverse range of Christchurch eateries to sign up with delivery service DoorDash. The US-based technology company has launched in the city, meaning locals can now download the DoorDash app and get deliveries from their favourite restaurants, cafes and convenience stores. The DoorDash app enables secure payment processing. Customers can see where their order is at all times and have the option to contact the driver. New customers in Christchurch can get free unlimited deliveries for their first month. Anup Nathu, owner of Mumbaiwala, says he is thrilled to work with DoorDash to share his love of Indian street food. “Having DoorDash in Christchurch brings in a huge opportunity for us as a restaurant. We are so excited to have the DoorDash team on the ground and embedded in the community, listening to what we need so...

Birds, birds, birds – Christchurch writer Kate Preece has teamed up with architect and illustrator Pippa Ensor to produce a children’s book on the rare and endangered bird species of Rēkohu Chatham Islands. One Weka Went Walking (Bateman Books) shines a spotlight on some of Aotearoa’s rarest birds, including one of the rarest seabirds in the world, the tāiko. The featured birds are all endemic to the Chatham Islands, except for the buff weka, which was introduced in 1905. You’ll know Kate – she’s written for and edited several magazine over the years, including editor of Style. Pippa is usually found behind her desk at Athfield Architects in Christchurch but Kate roped in her childhood friend as illustrator, thinking she would be the perfect person to bring the words to life. Pippa’s delightful drawings confirm Kate’s choice. Meanwhile the rhyming and repetition in the text is a guaranteed hook for young...

The Royal New Zealand Ballet is bringing Tutus on Tour to the Isaac Theatre Royal on 5 November. The performance is part of a 10-city tour from Auckland’s North Shore to Invercargill that began on October 7. Artistic Director Patricia Barker has curated a gorgeous gala programme that showcases RNZB dancers at their very best. Beloved classical favourites sit alongside more recent works, including one New Zealand premiere. The pas de trois from Le Corsaire offers firecracker virtuosity, while the joyful ‘Waltz of the Pohutukawa Flowers’ and grand pas de deux from the RNZB's production of The Nutcracker, choreographed by Val Caniparoli, heralds the Christmas season with warmth and grandeur. On the contemporary side, Christopher Wheeldon’s After the Rain pas de deux (2005) makes its RNZB debut. Gentle and tender, showing a profound connection between its performers, it is a work that is cherished by every dancer lucky enough to perform...