A weekly encounter between host William Southgate and people who are making things happen in the arts.
Design - Ken Goodman
Sound John Neill
Technical Producer Stuart Murray
Producer Terry Bryan
TV1 plans new arts series
By KEN COATES
Press, 23 June 1977
The arts, and people doing interesting and creative things in various fields, will receive belated attention from TV1 in a new series called “Arena,” which will begin when the first of 13 programmes is screened on Sunday afternoon. The producer. Terry Bryan, who has always been personally interested in the arts, says the series seeks to show interesting things that are happening around the country, particularly where communities are involved. Each programme will last 40 minutes. He has also found that with these stories often come interesting people.
For example, Helen Mason, the potter, was living in a community at Tokomaru Bay, or the east coast of the North Island, he said. The Māori people were decorating her pottery in Māori style, and she was teaching spinning and weaving. This was an interesting
story of cross-cultural exchange, as well as of a creative and interesting person. Terry Bryan has gathered much of the material for the first series, and has evolved a presentation pattern of films made “on location” one week, and a studio performance the next week.
“Arena” usually will consist of two items. It has been scheduled for the off-peak time of 4.30 p.m. on Sundays, but has the opportunity of securing a family audience.
On Sunday, the series will have a theme of comedy and dance. Six writers have each put together humorous sketches, ranging in duration from five minutes to five seconds.
They are Hanafi Hayes, managing director of the small independent Christchurch company, Telenion Productions, Joe Musaphia, Dave Smith, Roger Hall, Michael Wilson, and Derek Payne.
Terry Bryan says he asked comedy writers to submit material, approved sketches, engaged actors, and then asked them to direct their own productions. “This was done in response to a complaint from writers that often too many people get in
the way between what they write and the production,” he said. The other item in the first “Arena” features the Impulse Dance Theatre Company, based in Wellington. The second programme will show a documentary on the sculptor, Len Lye, as well as the installation of three of his works in the Govett-Brewster Gallery in New Plymouth.
A shorter item on the photographer, Ans Westra, has been filmed. To do this a film crew followed her at work in the Cuba Street Mall. In the production her finished prints are injected at the time of shooting, and she explains what was involved.
Another programme features the percussionist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Gary Brain, and consists of the performance he has been giving with schoolchildren round the country for the last three years. Forty children were invited to the Avalon studio, and “became very involved,” according to the producer. This will occupy the whole 40-minute programme.
Terry Bryan hopes that “Arena” will prove that an arts programme can be entertaining and competitive with other programmes on television. He considers that producers have tended to treat the arts with too much reverence. If “Arena” entertains and grabs viewers, then it could well merit consideration for re-slotting to attract a wider audience.
Christchurch viewers will be interested in the “Arena” coverage of the Christchurch Arts Centre. A film crew visited the centre on the day a fair was held, and the producer comments: “It is a nice story, we have plenty oi material, and it will occupy the whole programme. It will probably appear as the sixth in the series.”
Other subjects to be covered by “Arena”- include Murray Ball, the cartoonist and creator of “Footrot Flats”; the early music group, the Troubadours: and Indian music and dance in New Zealand, with emphasis on the Bakachandran family in Wellington and silversmiths working in Auckland.
“I have a reasonable budget, but have also had to be careful and gather as much material as possible within easy distance of Avalon,” commented the producer. The frontman for the series will be William Southgate, of Wellington.
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