Nigel Benson

He's been counting the Dunedin beat for more than 50 years, and along the way he has instilled a love of jazz in new generations. Nigel Benson catches up with Calder Prescott.

Part of Broad Bay, in Dunedin, took on an African aspect yesterday. Teachers and pupils from Broad Bay School dressed up in African costumes and masks for a dance performance in honour of a small school in Tanzania.

A Dunedin artist is grumpy because she says her nude dwarfs have been banned from the Dunedin Public Art Gallery.

It took a near-death experience to bring the artist alive. Now he uses bright, happy colours to paint macabre southern gothic scenes. Nigel Benson meets Tony Bishop.

An extraordinary man is commemorated in a new book. But the most extraordinary thing of all about Lord Arthur Porritt - Olympian, war hero, New Zealand Governor-General and Royal Surgeon - is that his story has remained untold until now. Nigel Benson meets author Joseph Romanos.

Clyde man Marc Cassidy has danced through knee and ankle surgery to carve himself a career. Nigel Benson reports.

At an age when most people are putting their feet up, Sir Jon Trimmer is still dancing around on his. The Royal New Zealand Ballet stalwart marks an incredible 50 years with the company in Dunedin this week. Nigel Benson meets Don Quixote.

Glass has provided the medium through which artist Sue Hawker has rediscovered Pakeha culture. It's a journey that went via Greece. Nigel Benson reports.

The 2008 Otago Festival of the Arts brought colour and character to Dunedin over the past 11 days.

Dunedin playwright Sarah McDougall's latest play, Things I Hate about Mother, played for the final time in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery last night in the 2008 Otago Festival of the Arts.

Four hours after landing at Dunedin Airport in a chartered Boeing 737 on Saturday, baritone Wade Kernot was centre-stage, leading the male chorus in Southern Opera's debut Dunedin performance, Verdi's Il Trovatore, in the Regent Theatre on Saturday night.

The 2008 Otago Festival of the Arts has been a huge success, organisers say.

Southern Opera makes its eagerly-awaited Dunedin debut tonight in Il Trovatore.

Stuart Devenie has brought one of New Zealand's most controversial characters to life in Hatch, Or The Plight of the Penguins.

The 50th anniversary of the Univer-sity of Otago Burns Fellowship was fittingly commemorated yesterday with the unveiling of a plaque at the feet of his statue.

Our local wildlife has been getting a good view of the Otago Festival of the Arts.