University announces coveted Arts fellowships for 2016

University of Otago Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne has yesterday announced the recipients of the University's prestigious Arts fellowships for 2016.

The Robert Burns Fellow is Victor Rodger, of Auckland; the Frances Hodgkins Fellow is Miranda Parkes, of Christchurch; the Mozart Fellow, Dr Chris Gendall, of Wellington; and the College of Education/Creative New Zealand Writer in Residence is Barbara Else, of Lower Hutt. The Caroline Plummer Fellow in Community Dance is Val Smith, of Auckland.

“I am proud to announce that from an incredibly strong pool of talented people who applied for our 2016 fellowships, we have selected five individuals who are emerging or at the forefront of their pursuits in the New Zealand arts,” she says.

“I warmly congratulate all next year's recipients and I look forward to seeing and reading their work, performances and installations, as they take their place among a long line of distinguished arts fellows at Otago.”

Former fellows include literary luminaries Janet Frame, Keri Hulme, James K Baxter, Michael King and Maurice Shadbolt, the artists Ralph Hotere and Grahame Sydney, not to mention many of New Zealand's significant composers, dancers and children's book writers.

The Fellows receive a stipend for between six months and one year and space on campus to indulge in their creative projects. Past Fellows have created dance performances, orchestral compositions, poetry, novels and children's books during this time.

Robert Burns Fellow
Victor Rodger

Robert Burns Fellow Victor Rodger

Victor Rodger is a New Zealand-born playwright of Samoan and palagi descent. His first play, Sons, won four Chapman Tripp theatre awards, including Best New Play and Best New Writer, while his award-winning play Black Faggot has performed to sell out houses in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Edinburgh and throughout New Zealand. A long-time writer for Shortland Street, Victor is currently adapting Black Faggot for the big screen.

“I was on the outskirts of Paris when I woke up in the middle of the night and discovered I'd been awarded the Burns Fellowship….. I am proud to be the first writer of Samoan descent to be part of the illustrious list of awardees. And I'm excited at the thought of working on two new works which are both real departures for me as a writer,” he says.

His planned works are "Jean's", an Irish family drama, and "Bethlehem” - a dark Kiwi variation of Thelma and Louise.

He would also like to work on "Doll," a piece that deals with race and race relations set in Scotland.

Frances Hodgkins Fellow
Miranda Parkes

Frances Hodgkins Fellow Miranda Parkes

Miranda Parkes graduated with Distinction in 2005 with a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Canterbury. Since that time, she has continued to receive numerous prestigious scholarships, prizes and residencies for her contemporary, abstract painting and installations. She has exhibited widely mostly in New Zealand, but more recently overseas, including in London, Shanghai and Sydney.

“I feel honoured and thrilled to receive the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship. I'm very much looking forward to moving to beautiful Dunedin and spending the year developing some exciting new aspects of my painting practice,” she says.

Mozart Fellow
Chris Gendall

Mozart Fellow Chris Gendall

Originally from Hamilton, New Zealand, Chris Gendall studied composition at Victoria University of Wellington before completing a doctoral degree at Cornell University. He has participated in a number of festivals and conferences including the Wellesley Composers' Conference, the Aspen Music Festival, and the Britten-Pears Contemporary Composition programme. He was the Creative New Zealand/Jack C. Richards Composer-in-Residence at the New Zealand School of Music for 2010–11.

Chris Gendall's works have resulted in performances in Europe, Asia, North and South America, by such performers as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart, Stroma, NZTrio, the New Juilliard Ensemble and the New Zealand String Quartet. His work Wax Lyrical was the winner of the SOUNZ Contemporary Award in 2008.

“I am rapt to be Mozart Fellow next year. I look forward to involving myself in some of the goings-on at the Music Department, and absorbing some of Dunedin's artistic atmosphere,” he says.
“Uninterrupted time to compose is such a luxury; I hope to be able to do as much as possible! I'll start by finishing off a new violin concerto and a work for solo percussion.”

College of Education/Creative New Zealand Children's Writer in Residence
Barbara Else

College of Education/Creative New Zealand Children's Writer in Residence Barbara Else

Barbara Else is the author of six novels for children and six for adults starting with her best-selling adult novel The Warrior Queen. Books in her children's series Tales of Fontania have won several awards including the Esther Glen Medal and prestigious IBBY and White Raven Awards. She has also written short stories and plays for children, and has edited several much-loved children's anthologies. She is co-director of a Wellington literary agency and manuscript assessment service and was Chief Judge for the 2014 NZ Post Children's and Young Adult Book Awards. In 1999 she was the Victoria University of Wellington Writer in Residence and has been awarded an MNZM for Services to Literature.

“My reaction to the news was hours of speechlessness. This honour is a fabulous opportunity. I'm very proud of being a graduate of Otago and want to contribute what I can to the university community,” she says.

She wants to write a children's novel that begins in ancient times and moves to a contemporary New Zealand sea-side settlement.

“It's a challenge that will extend my range and have direct relevance to New Zealand children.”

The Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance
Val Smith

The Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance
Val Smith

Choreographic artist Val Smith graduated in 2014 from the University of Auckland with a Master of Creative Performance and Arts (First Class Honours).

In recent years, she has worked as a professional teaching fellow in dance studies at the University of Auckland, a dance lecturer at UNITEC Institute of Technology, and has created more than 40 live art works since graduating from UNITEC's contemporary dance degree programme in 2000, presenting both at home, and in Australia, the US and Finland.

“What a delight to be offered the Caroline Plummer Fellowship for 2016.

I feel excited for this opportunity to work with queer, trans and rainbow communities in Dunedin to develop somatic choreographic processes for performance."

About the Fellowships:

The Robert Burns Fellowship is New Zealand's premier literary residency. The Fellowship was established in 1958 to commemorate the bicentenary of the birth of Robert Burns, and it is designed to encourage imaginative New Zealand literature and to bring writers to the University. Past fellows include Janet Frame, Roger Hall, Keri Hulme, James K. Baxter, Maurice Shadbolt, Michael King, Ian Cross, Owen Marshall, Ruth Dallas, James Norcliffe, David Eggleton, Sarah Quigley and Sue Wootton.

Charles Brasch, the initiator of the Fellowship, once wrote: "Part of a university's proper business is to act as nurse to the arts, or, more exactly, to the imagination as it expresses itself in the arts and sciences. Imagination may flourish anywhere. But it should flourish as a matter of course in the university, for it is only through imaginative thinking that society grows, materially and intellectually.' (Landfall, March 1959).

The Frances Hodgkins Fellowship, named after one of New Zealand's most distinguished artists, was established in 1962 to aid and encourage painters, sculptors and other artists and to foster an interest in the arts in the University. Past winners include Ralph Hotere, Grahame Sydney, Marilynn Webb, Fiona Pardington, Shane Cotton and Heather Straka.

The Mozart Fellowship was established by the University of Otago in 1969. The purpose of the Fellowship is to aid and encourage composers and performers of music in the practice and advancement of their art, to associate them with the life of the University and to foster an interest in contemporary music. Mozart Fellows often produce a concert of their works during their Fellowship year. Successful applicants include many of New Zealand's significant composers, including John Rimmer, Anthony Ritchie, Gillian Whitehead and Christopher Watson.

The Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance was established in 2003 and honours Caroline Plummer (1978-2003). Caroline completed a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and a Diploma for Graduates in Dance, and was awarded the University of Otago Prestige Scholarship in Arts. The Fellowship acknowledges Caroline's passion for dance and her vision for community dance in New Zealand. It was made possible by a Memorial Trust set up by Caroline's parents.

The University of Otago College of Education/Creative New Zealand Children's Writer in Residence is the only residency for a children's writer in New Zealand. Begun by the Dunedin College of Education in 1992, it allows writers to work full time in a compatible environment among colleagues who are concerned with the teaching of reading and literature to children.

It is jointly funded by the University and Creative New Zealand. The annual residency is for a six month period between February and August and includes an office within the College of Education.

The residency is offered in association with the Robert Lord Writers' Cottage Trust which provides rent-free accommodation to writers in the historic Titan Street cottage bequeathed by the late playwright Robert Lord. Recent Residents include Central Otago children's book writer Kyle Mewburn, and Dunedin writers Karen Trebilcock and Bill O'Brien.

For more information contact:

Jo Galer
Senior Communications Adviser
University of Otago
Tel: 03 479 8263
Mob: 021 279 8263

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