Lavish Adelaide festival

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34027, 16 December 1975, Page 18

Lavish Adelaide festival

Next years Adelaide Festival will be the most challenging and wideranging programme of arts activities staged in Australia, according to the chairman of the board of governors of the festival (Mr Bruce Macklin). The festival, to he held between March 6 and March 28. will cost almost Sim to stage in the new sl7m Festival Centre, which is described as one of the world’s most successful new performing arts complexes. Highlights of the festival will include 10 world premiere performances, numerous Australian premieres, and the first visits to Australia of several of the biggest names in the arts. Mr Macklin said the blend of international and Australian attractions at the festival was almost equal, and there was strong emphasis on contemporary music, drama, dance, visual arts, and literature. “The festival deliberately steers clear of themes, but we have several threads running through next year’s programme,” Mr Macklin said. “One of these is the largeri

B than usual contingent of t American performing groups, -land personalities, chosen to| ((celebrate the United States! 1! bicentenary. Another is a. ) history-making mini-season of Jißlack Theatre, with perform-! Fiances representing South j,Africa, the United States,! Australia, and possibly! Nigeria.” i. In performance terms, the; '“big guns” of the festival will. ‘lbe the 85 members of the! ’ Siberian Cossacks from the! - U.S.S.R.; the 50 members of lithe Radio Symphony Orchest tra from Saarbrucken (West’ -Germany), under the; 11 composer-conductor. Hans; (Werner Henze; Llamo. the: 1 (national folk theatre of Tibet; - and the Contemporary Cham--3 ber Ensemble, the Negro j Ensemble Company’, and f Merce Cunningham and 3 Dance Company, all from New York. 1 A strong trend at future | - festivals would be for com-j 1 missioned works, said Mr.' : Macklin. •; Mr and Mrs Gus Hines, of i .(Adelaide, have commissioned! ■ a new piece of music by a! (leading American composer,l r Charles Wuorinen, to be I t played by the Contemporary) • Chamber Ensemble at the; i Adelaide Town Hall on March! : 21. In addition, there will be) I Australia’s first large-scalel

iexhibition of jewellery, fashlions, and objets d’art from (the 1920 s and 19305; the first (showing of 60 masterpieces | from the Australian National Gallery's multi-million dollar (collection; and several distinguished visitors for ’Writers Week. including (Tennessee Williams and James Baldwin, both of whom iwill give public lectures. One of the more unusual (facets of the festival will be 'a programme of “celebrations” in public places, to be masterminded by the New ’York Celebrations Group’s Jfounder-choreographer. Mariillyn Wood. ij The “celebrations” will : include street theatre, instant • dance happenings, nightly ’ sky launches of inflatable : sculptures, and sensory participation events for the general public. Mr Macklin said that the I wide ranging performances, (coupled with the project, by 'Adelaide people to design and (handcraft hundreds of individual street banners, promised Ito ensure that the 1976 Festijval was the “best yet.” I “We are convinced that (compared with the proj'grammes featured by more (established festivals. Adelaide's will be one of the (most stimulating arts festivals 'held anywhere in the world,” ihe said.