The Asia-Pacific Triennial of Performing Arts has kicked off in Melbourne returning after a five-year hiatus. For the next three weeks, the city will be celebrating diverse and dynamic creatives and innovators from across the region including Singapore, Taiwan and Japan. This year, there are three streams; performance, nightlife and knowledge which will feature 33 performances, 18 of which are world premieres. Culture 101 speaks to Creative Director Jeff Khan about what audiences can expect from this year's festival.

Each week, Culture 101 puts the spotlight on a different part of Aotearoa for our Regional Week. This week, we're heading north of Auckland Tamaki Makaurau to the Matakana region. A 45-minute drive from Auckland, it's a foodie haven with its farmers market, local artisinal producers, vineyards and boutique shops and galleries. It's surrounded by rolling hills and valleys with stunning beaches nearby including Omaha and Tawharanui Regional Park. Food and wine writer for more than two decades, author and editor of nine cookbooks and one travel book, and Matakana resident, Lauraine Jacobs, speaks to Culture 101.

Nadia Freeman's show The Girmit takes us back to the time between 1879 and 1916 when more than 60,000 people were transferred from India to Fiji by the British to work on sugar-cane plantations as indentured labourers. They came to be known as Girmitiyas and today make up over 32 percent of the Fijian population. 15,000 of their descendants live in New Zealand, Nadia Freeman is one of those descendants. A poet, performer, musician, and theatre producer she is about to restage The Girmit in which she tells the story of her grandparents through electronic music, poetry and theatre. It's a story she says no one in her family knew. She is also part of an exhibition at Otara's Fresh Gallery until March 1, Hidden Inheritance in which fellow Fijian-Indian artists explore this legacy. Nadia Freeman also performs as Miss Leading, a producer of electronica, pop, techno and song. The Girmit is to be performed as part of New Zealand Fringe at the National Library Thursday 27th of February and Pataka in Porirua Friday 28 February, and at the Nelson Fringe on the 6th and 7th of March. There is also a new documentary Girmit - The Fields of Sadness getting screenings nationally in Auckland, Hamilton and Christchurch Friday 28 February to 2 March.

David Cronenberg's 1979 body horror The Brood teases in its trailer that it's "a film so terrifying that it will devastate you totally". What possesses us to love horror films so? Curator of Screams may have the answer. They are a collaboration between two contemporary art and horror film lovers, Dowse Art Museum senior curator Chelsea Nichols and City Gallery Wellington senior curator Aaron Lister. Through their lively instagram account and exhibition curation, singularly, and together they explore how art and horror film can be "born of the same dark womb". Curator of Screams believe horror is again having a cultural moment. They have a new exhibition The Brood at the Dowse, and take their title from Cronenberg's film. In that film a mentally ill mother is said to undergo an experimental 'psychoplasmic' treatment, causing her to give birth to monstrous little 'rage babies' that wreak havoc on her behalf. Nichols and Lister equate this to the sense sometimes for artists, that artworks might "sometimes operate like wayward, feral children left to run amok in the world." They see a new dark sensibility in recent Aotearoa art. The exhibition features nine new commissions from artists who they consider some of the most interesting on the scene. "A new generation," they write, "of brooding, gothy children" There's a general gothic menace to the exhibition but there are also horror film references aplenty: from the demonic dog of Cujo (1983) to Buffalo Bill's dance from The Silence of the Lambs (1991). The duo Curator of Screams joined Mark Amery on Culture 101. The Brood is at the Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt until 22 June.

The Hamilton Arts Festival has kicked off for another year. Music, theatre, dance, comedy and artistic experiences fill the Hamilton Gardens with more than 800 peformers this year, across 9 days. Most shows will take place in the gardens with a few sprinkled around the CBD including the Meteor and Riverlea Theatre. It's also the first time a literary festival will be held within the festival - called HamLit. Show Do Cafe is a contemporary dance piece exploring the journey of coffee starting n Brazil before travelling to Aotearoa. It looks at the social, historical, cultural and political influence of coffee - and the impact of capitalism and consumption. It's a billion dollar industry for Brazil which is one of the top exporters in the world. Stela Dara is a Brazilian performer trained in contemporary, hip-hop and capoeira. She spoke to Culture 101 showcasing Brazilian on an Aotearoa stage. Show Do Cafe is at The Pavillion at Hamilton Gardens on Wednesday 26 February.

Tina, the debut feature film of Miki Magasiva is a love letter to both Samoan culture and how choral music, across cultures, can assist people in change. The way art can enable acceptance of the richness of our difference. But Tina is also centrally about how Pasifika women are leaders in taking culture forward. The title translates in English as mother, or female elder. And in the lead role Anapela Polata'ivao plays Mareta, a mother struggling after the death of her daughter in the 2011 Christchurch Earthquake. Taking on a job as a teacher at a wealthy Pakeha-dominated private school, Mareta connects with kids who it turns out also really need support. She takes them all the way to the Big Sing National Choir Competition. Anapela Polata'ivao gives a remarkable performance. She is the constant, complex beating heart of this movie. As a director and actor Anapela has long played a significant leadership role in bringing Pacific voices to stage and screen, and last year became an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of her service. We welcomed her to Culture 101 to play 'Fast Favourites' where her choices were Lindah Lepou, Jordyn with a Why and writer directors Arianne Mnouchkine, Vela Manusaute and Nina Nawalowalo.

The latest arts news from around the motu.

How can we live better, closer and more affordably together? New Zealand young architecture studio Space Craft are one of the winners of a recent competition to design the housing of the future for New South Wales. The state called for designs of cost effective but beautiful apartments that could be repeated at scale. The state has - like New Zealand - a major housing shortage. New South Wales needs to build 370,000 homes over five years. Space Craft are now refining their winning designs for inclusion in a housing pattern book, expected to launch this year. Pattern books - a kind of template drawing set - aren't used in New Zealand, but there's been a call for them. A response to what is seen as the need for classier, cheaper and more sustainable solutions to our housing shortfall. Critics here say we are building too many bland and insufficient townhouses. Space Craft's Caro Robertson and Tim Gittos have gained a reputation for inventive affordable design solutions for small sections. Their passion began with their own needs when they wanted an affordable first home as a couple. They are also advocates of cohousing, where basic infrastructure and common areas are shared between home owners. Their cohousing project Block Party in Wellington won a 2023 New Zealand Institute of Architects Multi-Unit Housing Award. Caro and Tim have just built a new home for themselves far from Sydney or Wellington. They joined us from north of Whangarei, in Ngunguru.

Tackling the Tamaki Makaurau performing arts scene and keeping it alive is part of Daniel Clarke's new role as Director of Performing Arts at Tātaki Auckland Unlimited. Clarke leads a team which oversees the Aotea Centre, Aotea Square, The Civic, Bruce Mason Centre and the Auckland Town Hall with the aim of putting a stronger focus on live entertainment, on behalf of the Auckland Council. Clarke moved from Australia to take on the role where he's had extensive experience in programming and directing. He's worked at Arts Centre Melbourne, Queensland Performing Arts Centre and was co-festival director of World Pride in Sydney. During Covid in Melbourne, he co-led the development and digital strategy to support artists while they worked remotely.

The large town of Ashburton is to be found on the Canterbury Plains, halfway between Christchurch and Timaru. It is home to the increasingly celebrated Ashburton Art Gallery and Heritage Centre, whose director Shirin Khosraviani joined Culture 101 for our Regional Wrap. The gallery's new building opened 10 years ago and has now welcomed the local museum inside. In current museum exhibition, Bridging the Chasm the history of the Great Southern Railway is explored. How from 1874 it "opened Ashburton to the world" is explored (the railway stopped in 2002). Ashburton Art Gallery has become known for its strong local and national programming under Khosraviani. That includes the about-to-open Zonta Ashburton Women's Art Awards and exhibition, which is now in its ninth year and the only award of its type in the country. The premier award winner of that show gets their own exhibition the following year. This year that's 2024 winner Marie Porter. Her installation Recloaking considers the harvesting of pine trees on Te Pataka o Rakaihautu Banks Peninsula, and land that Porter cares for. These shows are on until 27 April. Another recent cultural highlight for Khosraviani has been the debut of a new kapa haka group,Te Whanau o Hakatere, at a Waitangi at the Pa event at Hakatere marae. Hakatere is the Maori name for the Ashburton River.