Seek Help! performing at Te Whare o Rukutia, Amped Music Project 2024 Photo: Craig Birch-Morunga
The Ōtepoti arts scene has long had a gloriously independent, fertile, multi-generational and cross art form approach. But is that culture - once famously dubbed the Dunedin Sound - under threat?
Many creatives are concerned. They came of age in the city from the 1980s through to the 2010s, and cite factors like increased rents and noise control provisions as practical threats to space for the city’s arts community.
Alex Huber's cover for Fruit Salad Records' 2023 Ōtepoti Music Compilation Volume One featuring 16 Dunedin bands. Photo: supplied
“Spiritually and culturally I think people still share that same vision of what they had a really long time ago,” musician Tawhai ‘Tough Guy’ Huriwai tells RNZ’s Culture 101, “but physically and logistically it’s a lot harder to put something together."
A range of initiatives aim to support it. Now in its 10th year, this month sees the remarkable New Zealand Young Writers Festival bring writers from around Aotearoa. It's the only festival of its kind in the country.
Running alongside it currently is the Dunedin Fringe’s Amped Music Project, which sees young musicians given workshops, mentoring and performances.
The Fringe, festivals like Lines of Flight, vacant space activators Dunedin Dream Brokerage and artist project spaces like the Blue Oyster have continued to provide support.
In 2023, Dunedin City Council drafted the country’s first Live Music Action Plan, meeting the concerns of advocacy group Save Dunedin Live Music.
However, frustrations continue to be expressed this year in terms of seeing its implementation. On 14 September, the legendary Captain Cook Hotel reopens as music venue Dropkicks, joining other local music venues like The Crown, Pearl Diver, Moons and Erricks.
The performing arts community lost mainstay Fortune Theatre back in 2018 with no replacement and more recently a number of independent companies. Progress is still awaited from council on a proposed Performing Arts Centre.
Slam workshop at New Zealand Young Writers festival Photo: Blake Armstrong
Poet and musician Eliana Gray and Tawhai Huriwai joined RNZ’s Culture 101 to discuss the scene. They have both had involvement with the young writers’ festival and Amped.
Huriwai has been a guest artist in the Amped Music Project previously, and many of the musicians in the city at the moment have either come through the programme or been guest artists or mentors.
Eliana Gray Photo: supplied
Eliana Gray is helping run ‘Songwriter’s Toolbox with To The Front’ in festival: a series of programmes where music is used to inspire young women, intersex, trans, queer, takatāpui and gender-diverse youth.
Both artists appear as part of the event The Remix on 13 September, which is described as giving the ‘80s writing legacy of the Dunedin Sound a shakeup. MC Tate Fountain has brought together a line up of poets and musicians to respond to the legacy.
Earlier this year Eliana Gray wrote an article for Pantograph Punch on this artist-run scene in the 2010s discussing spaces like None and Glue Gallery. A poet and musician, formerly known for the duo Jagger x Lines, they are Chair and development & wellbeing coordinator for To the Front, formerly known as Girls Rock Aotearoa.
Tawhai 'Tough Guy' Turiwai Photo: supplied
Solo musician Tawhai Huriwai (Ngāti Porou, Ngā Puhi) goes under the artist moniker Tough Guy. He’s been playing in many different venues around the city for a few years with “a loop pedal, guitar and attitude”.
Terms like ‘The Dunedin Scene’ and ‘Dunedin Sound’ have come to stand for some distinctive qualities of the contemporary cultural life of this city.
While it may still be best known for a raft of bands that emerged in the 1980s, and a DIY cross artform approach embodied by the likes of the late Martin Phillips, generations of great artists have followed, right up to the success currently of groups like Marlin’s Dreaming and Death and the Maiden.
'Should I have read this?' at New Zealand Young Writers Festival Photo: B's Photography
Its small size, relative isolation and the colder climate perhaps encourage artists to work together without industry pressure. A city blessed with a richness of heritage buildings, and less economic boom and bust, has seen artists able to create their own inner city spaces and venues, with a grand surrounding landscape for inspiration.
The New Zealand Young Writers Festival runs 13-15 September. There are workshops, discussions, poetry slams and performances.
Sunday 8 September sees the final performance set in the Amped Music Project for 2024. Featuring many artists, it’s at a current creative hub, venue the Pearl Diver.
