Villainesse: What inspired you to write Powerful ?
Tali: The song is a culmination of things. Firstly, I have had various conversations...
We all know and love Disney films. No one can ever take away the hours of watching and...
In 2015, after six years of playing Shortland Street ’s Cooper family matriarch, Wendy, actor Jacqueline Nairn was ready for a new challenge that...
Can opera be political? If you ask Emma Pearson, the answer is yes.
Pearson is one...
Can dance be empowering? Sure it can – at least as Ufitia Sagapolutele tells it.
Sagapolutele will be presenting her work Ave as part of...
Dancer Santee Smith is Onkwehon:we (meaning “Real People”) from the Kahnyen’kehàka (Mohawk) Nation, Turtle Clan, Six Nations of the Grand River....
By now the scenes are all too familiar: the dead, the wounded, the wreckage. A senseless act of violence meant to instill...
There’s something about documentaries that resonates with me. Maybe it’s the fact that, unlike most Hollywood blockbusters, a...
For those of us old enough to remember 1999, the name TrueBliss brings about a wave of nostalgia. I must’ve been 10 when I lined up at the door of...
Fear.
That’s the first feeling you get when you set foot in North Korea. Cold, all-...
This month we are celebrating feminist comedy with our ‘April Fools’ series, featuring kickass Kiwi comedians. Today, Guy Williams steps up to the...
This month we are celebrating feminist comedy with our ‘April Fools’ series, featuring kickass Kiwi comedians. First up is author, columnist,...
Dear makers of The Bachelor ,
We tried watching your show. We really did. This, despite the fact it gives our feminist hearts palpitations...
Take a step back for a moment, and think about this: who’s the first person that comes to...
In 2015 male characters in box office...
Amanda Gruenwald’s Auckland garage is a mishmash of different objects. There are various tools and implements on the walls,...
What do you get when you ask 12 different women the same questions? You’re about to find out. This year, in...
Revolution. The word was confronting once, before the term ‘social justice warrior’ became pejorative, when activism...
What do you know about beatboxing?
It’s a strange question, sure. A lot of us may...
Exhilaratingly wild, fearless and playful, feminism at its messy edge.
That’s one way to describe Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. Written...
The Treaty of Waitangi is one of the founding documents of Aotearoa. The implications of this document have had, and will continue to have,...
When reports started circulating that Club Penguin had become the unlikely stage of a series of anti-Trump demonstrations, I did what no other...
First published on Monday the 18th of April, 2016, this piece comes in at number 3 in...
First published on Sunday the 23rd of October, 2016, this piece comes in at number 6 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2016....
First published on Thursday the 12th of May, 2016, this piece comes in at number 12 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2016.
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First published on Wednesday the 16th of March, 2016, this piece comes in at number 22 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2016....
First published on Tuesday the 8th of March, 2016, this piece comes in at number 29 in the top 30 most read Villainesse stories of 2016....
Christmas, New Year’s and the summer holidays are here, and for many of us that means overloading on TV...
It’s that time of year again, when Auckland’s Basement Theatre hosts its eighth annual holiday show. This year, after...
If there is one show that will inspire you to take up circus training immediately, it is Briefs – the all-male cabaret currently playing at Q...
Full disclosure: I like men in skinny jeans and am quite partial to a man bun. Until a few nights ago I didn’t realise that my taste in male...
Ever since the release of her debut self-titled EP in 2011, Ria Hall has become one of the fiercest females in Aotearoa’s music...
It’s hard to believe that the very first Bridget Jones film came out in 2001. From the outset, poor Bridget was harassed for not progressing the...
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,...
Beauty. Ugliness. Darkness. Light. Reality. Myth.
These six words can describe the...
She’s whip-smart, far stronger than any human, and is an...
We’ve written before about the problems with depictions of...
What do you think of when you think of cabaret? Do images of scantily-clad women with feather boas and bustiers...
Savina Kim is short, Asian and a woman. “That’s three strikes,” she laughs.
She also happens to be the Event Coordinator at Auckland Live...
NameUL. It’s a name you will hear about very soon, if you haven’t already. And my suggestion is to turn the young rapper up – because you’re in...
Call me strange, but I find few things more satisfying than curling up in a cosy...
The year is 1914. War engulfs the European continent. Thousands of New Zealand soldiers...
There’s nothing worse than someone spoiling the book you’re reading. I know. I may or may not have finished Harry Potter and the Order of the...
Women as conniving, or as infantile, creatures that aren’t quite at the same level men are. Women as sex objects. Women getting fucked, beat up,...
There’s something about masks that fascinates many people. The idea of being able to become someone else – to hide...
Like most 90’s kids, I was – and still am – a fan of The Simpsons . But unlike my peers, out of all the...
In Aotearoa, New Zealand, we lend our voices to the language of our colonisers. The language of the streets is...
Kelly Nash, one of three choreographers in the upcoming production, Manaia , creates a relationship...
Six-and-a-half hours. That’s approximately how long I spent binge-watching Netflix yesterday. Six-and-a-half blissful hours of The Killing and...
In this age of celebrity saturation, true authenticity is rare. When everyone from actors and musicians to...
Warning : spoiler alert if you aren’t familiar with the Me Before You storyline and ending.
Imagine you were a live-life-to-the-fullest-...
According to his website , not much is known about Brian Bilston. I happened...
I sat by one of my best friends at the movies a few weeks ago while a pre-...
If you’ve been waiting for a book that covers everything from Miss Piggy’s near rapist tendencies, to the struggle to say the word ‘period’, to...
If you’re like me, when someone mentions Tupperware parties, you imagine the...
When I was a little girl from the provinces, my favourite part of a trip to Auckland was the obligatory trek to Borders on Queen Street. Down in...
Jimi Hunt is living more awesome. And his goal is to have you live more awesome too.
Which is...
I’m in my twenties. I have a beard. I’m a ballet dancer.
OK – I may not be the typical person you think of when you think of someone who...
As we’ve discussed previously on Villainesse , abortion isn’t exactly a subject that slips...
One year ago today, Villainesse was born.
It simultaneously seems like just yesterday and about a decade since she sprang into being, and...
