The living arts

Press, 10 June 1980, Page 25

The living arts

Spreading Limbs The Limbs Dance Company, with two Australian mime and dance specialists. Bob Thorneycroft and Nancy Lang, will perform in Christchurch tonight, tomorrow and Thursday, as part of a national tour. The two Australians have spent the last two months in the Northern Territory performing before audiences ranging from mine workers to Aboriginal school children. After the Limbs tour, the two will make their own North Island tour, and will play to the public, at campuses, and at schools in smaller centres. Limbs also has more travel scheduled. The day after the tour ends the group will leave for Papua New Guinea, as part of New Zealand’s contribution to the South Pacific Arts Festival. Later in the year the group will tour Australia. A special projects grant from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council has enabled Limbs to spend the last two months preparing new dances for the present tour. These will feature music by New Zealanders, ranging from Split Enz to Kiri Te Kanawa. In Papua New’ Guinea. Limbs will take part in the three types of performance at’ the festival: in theatre venues, in community venues such as markets, and in the Highlands, where the group will spend three days. “It will be an excellent opportunity to soak up new dance forms and cultures, and this will undoubtedly provide new and exciting ideas for future choreography,” said the group’s manager. Sue Paterson. Mark Baldwin, who left the group in 1978 and has spent 18 months with the Ballet Rambert in London, will rejoin Limbs for the Papua New’ Guinea visit. Youth concert The Royal Christchurch Musical Society’s subscription concert in the Town Hall on Saturday will be a “youth concert,” and will feature the Christchurch Youth Orchestra. Tha main work on the programme is Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” described as a “profane cantata.” The work is a setting for soloists, chorus, and orchestra of a number of poems of the thirteenth century. These songs belonged to wandering students, ecclesiastics and rogues, who forsook their universities and monaster'?s for the life of the high road and tavern. The work was first performed in Christchurch at a youth concert promoted by the N.Z.B.C. Symphony Orchestra at Canterbury Court in 1966. The next year the Society gave a repeat performance with piano accompaniment, ,at the concert after the world ploughing championships. The society last performed “Carmina Burana” in 1973, but since then there have been performances at Canterbury University and by. the New Zealand Ballet. The concert on Saturday will open with a performance of Brahms’s “Academic Festival Overture,” played by the Youth Orchestra. This overture was written by Brahms to mark the award of an honorary degree at Breslau University. It is written around a’ number of . student songs, concluding with the wellknown “Gaudeamus Igitur.” The overture will be followed by Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with the young Christchurch pianist, Michael Lawrence, as soloist. Michael Lawrence has twice been the runner-up in the Auckland concerto contest. These works will be conducted by Peter Zwartz. The first half of the concert will end with a performance of “Sancuts” by a Christchurch composer, Kit Powell. This was written as the finale to a stage production “Harold and William” in ■1970 bv Linwood High School. In 1978 Kit Powell rescored the work for full symphony orchestra and this will be the first performance of the work in its new form. Kit Powell is well known for his work among schoolchildren in the primary schools music festivals and also as the composer of “The Pink Panther’s Picnic,” which .was played at the society’s recent “Music for All” concerts with the Skellerup Woolston Band. Robert Field-Dodgson will conduct the two choral items. The soloists in ‘'Carmina Burana’” are all local singers. The soprano soloist is Angela Shaw, well known for her work in Opera. Barry Brinson will be the counter tenor, and Ralph Scott the baritone soloist. The latter two will be making their first appearance with the society. Pottery aitard A Raumati Beach woman, Debbie Pointon, won the 1980 Fletcher Brownbuilt Pottery Award, with a wood-fumed bowl in porcelain. She took the $2OOO award ahead of 166

entries, including 29 from overseas. Seven merit awards also were announced by the judge, Robin Welch, of England. Mr Welch said his short list of IS entries was representative of the highest international standards. The merit awards wen: to Loraine Ciark, Coromandel; Sue Clifford. Wyndham; Kate Collie. New York. United States; Julia Colman, Auckland; Lex Dawson, Drury; Ted Dutch, Auckland; Vic Greenaway, Australia; Jean Hastedt. Paraparaumu; Peter Hawkesby, Auckland; Sharon Kennedy, Waiheke; Kathrin McMiles, Australia; Stuart Newby, Auckland; Peter Oxborough. Warkworth; John Parker, Gratia: Rick Rudd. Auckland; Neil Tetkowski. United States; and lan Smail, Albany. Classic revived

Thornton Wilder’s “Out Town” will be presented by the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society for a seven-night season at the Repertory Theatre, beginning on Saturday. When presented for the first time in 1938 “Our Town” created a sensation. The production was very different from the naturalistic style of theatre then in vogue.

Earlier dramas had been set on a bare stage, but in none had the setting (or absence of setting) represented an entire town and the characters a large cross-section of its. citizens.

From a much earlier school of theatre Thorton Wilder borrowed the convention of having a stage manager — in reality the play’s star — to set the stage in the minds of the audience and to establish the mood of nostalgia which pervades the action. Ostensibly the play is the story of two families living in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, between 1901 and 1913. They are shown as typical of all people “in our growing up and in our marrying, and in out living and in our dying.”

A whole gallery of characters is gradually seen to evolve round the central lives of young Emily Webb and George Gibbs.

Thornton Wilder was awarded the Pultitzer Prize for “Our Town”.

Gerald Orchard portrays thecentral character of the Stage Manager, who serves as commentator. Others featured in the large cast are Alan Bunn, Juliet Robinson, Graeme Rose, Helen Coulson, Toni* Glue, Charles Drace, Helen Goodall,' Jonathon Foster, Greg McLean, Martyn McCobb, Reuben Battino, Mervyn Glue, Lionel Rogers, Neil Thinn, Les Webster, Alan Collins, Olwyn Loudon, Valerie Perry, Sylvia Buckland, Janice Milne, Beverley Power, Charlotte Battino, Helen Johnson and Lynley Fraser. A mixed choir which appears in three scenes has been rehearsed by Valerie Perry. Charles Drace, who was trained in the United States and London, is the producer; it is his first production for Repertory since - "The Children’s Hour” in 1975. “Our Town” was first presented by Repertory in 1955. Duo on tour

Two leading New Zealand solo musicians, one of whom is visiting the country as a touring artist, will present a concert in Christchurch on Saturday night. The cellist. Ross Pople, originally from Wanganui, and the Wellington pianist, Bruce Greenfield, are touring as a duo. They will play music by Mendelssohn, Elliott Carter, Kodaly, and Debussy in 11 centres, on a tour arranged by the Music Federation. Ross Pople who studied law until a tide of musical achievements decided him to concentrate on that, is now principal cellist and soloist with the 8.8. C. Symphony Orchestra. His contract allows him time off to pursue an independent solo career. He has made numerous return visits to New Zealand for solo performances, and has won various international musical awards. Just over a decade ago, when 24, he had already become principal cellist of the Menuhin Festival Orchestra and cellist in the Menuhin Ensemble. Bruce Greenfield is known through the country because of his Radio New Zealand broadcasts, both as a soloist and as an accompanist for visiting artists. He has toured New Zealand extensively as director of the New Zealand Opera Quartet, as a member the Gagliano Trio, and in a duo with the pianist,, Deidre Irons. At present he is a lecturer at the Wellington Polytechnic. Sivan song This year’s exhibition by the Canterbury’ Potters Association, which will open in the CSA gallery next week, will probablv mark the “swan song” of one of New Zealand’s best-known potters, .Yvonne Rust

This will he her last year as a potter; she has told members of the potters association that she intends to retire to Whangarei and take up some other activity, perhaps painting. The Canterbury exhibition, for which she is se- . lector as well as a great exhibitor, is an appropriate venue for her final exhibition, because she is as well known and perhaps, better known, as a teacher of pottery than as a potter, and more than half her teaching career has been spent in Christchurch. She learned to pot with Jim Nelson, and in the 1950 s she worked hard to get the Craft Centre in Springfield Road “off the ground.” .In 1959 she opened her own “Studio of Design” in • Colombo Street, and during the. next six years 400 students passed through its doorsl I.t was the first full-time pottery school in New Zealand, and many of today’s leading potters began their career in this primitive studio. The great Japanese potter, Hamada worked there for 10 davs in 1966, .. . . After Yvonne Rust lief t Christchurch she started a pottery movement among miners on the West Coast, and explored the use of raw materials in the, area. She retired from ' teaching art in 1972, and, with a grant from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council, developed land she had bought in Parua Bay, neat Whangarei. Each year, since, she has held a national pottery school there. She will give public lectures in Christchurch on Saturday and Sunday, and will also run a weekend pottery workshop. On Monday she will give a demonstration workshop.

The exhibition will open in rhe Mair Gallery at the C.S.A. on Tuesday.

A selection of members’ oots will be shown. Guest exhibitors in addition to Yvonne R.ist will be two Auckland potters, Graeme Storm and Barbara Hockenhull. Theatre courses Enrolments will be taken by the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society in its Greeen Room tomorrow evening for two training courses. Each course is of 15 weekly classes. Both will be arranged. and supervised bv Patricia Juniper and John McClatchie. Patricia Juniper coached two Repertory Training School classes last year; her associate, who is an American, is a newcomer to the Christchurch theatre scene. He has recently completed two years of intensive theatre training at Studio 12. in Auckland. He has performed throughout New Zealand in poetry, and music concerts, and more recently has worked for Television New Zealand in Dunedin. The first course, for those aged 15 and over, will serve as an ‘.introduction to acting. The emphasis will be on practical training in the craft and technique of acting. The last five of the 15 weekly classes will be devoted to performance material. Classes will be held on, Saturday mornings from 10 a.m, till noon, beginning on June 21. The second course will attempt a general coverage of-theatrical practice .and drama from the fifth century to the present day. Each class will feature a mixture of informal lecture and discussion, extensive use of slides, and < play reading. These classes will .be held on Wednesday nights from 7.30 to 9, beginning on June 18. Those enrolling should be 17 or older.