Te Ara finds its way into the arts
Posted 13 July 2010 // Helen Rickerby
The great uranium rush of the 1950s features in Te Radar's show, and in Te Ara
We’re doing something right, I think, because Te Ara has made it into works of art – or at least the two I discovered this weekend.
Te Ara on mermaids
The weather wasn’t that flash on Saturday morning, so I was doing a bit of reading in bed – the warmest place in the house. I was reading the latest issue of Sport literary magazine, and was quite engrossed in a short story by Alison Glenny, ‘Mermaid Fever’. Its form is a series of extracts from ‘reference works’ and ‘novels’ which relate to the New Zealand mermaid.
Unlike the European version, the New Zealand mermaid apparently has a dark complexion and hair like kelp. People who see one apparently experience ‘a mysterious sense of being “unlocked” or “lifted”‘, and are ‘blessed with the gift of a unique poetic or artistic inspiration’.
I noticed that an ‘extract’ from Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand had been included in this miscellany - a biography of one Olive Burling (1922-) an artist who saw a mermaid at Raumati, on the Kapiti coast. Soon after she painted the artworks that made her name. (The eagle-eyed among you may have noted that Te Ara doesn’t have biographies, yet, though we will soon be integrating the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.)
Perhaps, inspired by this work of fiction, you will find a new entry for the New Zealand mermaid on Te Ara on the first of April next year.
Te Ara on stage
One of my colleagues had already noted that Te Radar’s new comedy show, Eating the Dog, covered some similar ground to our fine encyclopedia, and I was delighted to discover that he gave us a plug as one of his useful sources of material (along with NZ On Screen and others).
Te Radar, who is a comedian, writer, tv star, among other things, is currently touring Eating the Dog around the country. It mines New Zealand history for ‘the history that history tried to forget … It is an irreverent and educational look at some of the more notable characters and events from New Zealand’s past, commemorating the bumblers and the near-do-wells, the ones who personify the archetypal “She’ll be right” spirit that made this country great.’ (http://www.radarswebsite.com/projects/eating-the-dog/about).
Using visual aids, he takes you through New Zealand’s ‘uranium rush’, first aeronautical death, incompetent military leaders and more.
So, it isn’t a standard history of New Zealand, but nevertheless is informative as well as fun. And it’s great to see our information used as raw material for a show like this.
If you haven’t had a chance to check out Eating the Dog, you should - it is funny, dramatic, clever, poignant, subversive - a wry celebration of our unsung heroes and anti-heroes. It’s also a witty exploration of who we are as New Zealanders.
And who knew that historical could also be hysterical?!!!