Danik Abishev was born in the circus "I really didn't have a choice about becoming a performer," he says.

Nestled in beautiful Tapapakanga Park Splore festival became annual for the first time this year, and it seems the move was a very successful one, write Lydia Jenkins and Rachel Bache.

A gallery has grown in the heart of Coromandel Town. In a purpose-built space designed by Ron Sang, Barry Brickell's Driving Creek Art Gallery is hosting its sixth exhibition Using Paint and Clay Expressively.

"I don't make lollies!" Lemi Ponifasio is talking about the often-extreme reaction to his latest production, I AM, from which many audience members walked out when it was staged at last year's Edinburgh International Festival.

In painting, even at its most abstract, a strong horizontal across a work is inescapably read as a horizon.

Mother/Jaw is a youthful, passionate and promising exploration of being and identity. It emphasises "otherness" - arising from ethnicity, on one hand, and states of mind on the other - and takes a significant stance in the Fringe Festival dance programme.

Deutsche Grammophon must be very happy to have Grigory Sokolov in its stable. The Russian came to the notice of the world in 1966, winning the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition at only 16.

On Thursday, Kathryn Stott caps off her first visit to our coundty playing Shostakovich with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra.

Award-winning Auckland playwright Elisabeth Easther was once an erotic fiction writer. As Fifty Shades of Grey hits our screens, she reveals the highs and lows of her short-lived career in smut.

Other winning photographs highlighted animal cruelty in China and the Ebola crisis in west Africa.

As a setting for Shakespeare it would be hard to beat the café balcony of the historic Pah Homestead.

With the ongoing diet of gallery exhibitions, theatre and comedy, Auckland's creative offering rivals any of the world's great international cities, writes Heather Shotter.

Local playwright Victor Rodger has followed up last year's revival (Sons) and premiere (At the Wake) with a new play that brings a light touch to tragedy.