Arts festival’s international flavour deliberate policy: but places for N.Z. artists

Press, 31 January 1986, Page 18

Arts festival’s international flavour deliberate policy: but places for N.Z. artists

By

KAY FORRESTER

The’ first New Zealand International Festival of Arts at Wellington in March has its critics of the glittering array of international stars, led by one of the world’s most durable personalities, Dame Joan Sutherland, that is surely the festival’s strength.

But for the critics the international flavour of the threeweek festival is also a weakness. They claim the festival organisers have sought overseas stars at great cost and at the expense of New Zealand talent.

The list is indeed impressive: Dame Joan, Richard Bonynge, the Philip Glass Ensemble, Laurie Anderson, the Berlin Staatskapelle with Seigfried Kurz and Christian Ehwald, the Sydney Dance Company, Michel Lemieux, the Awaji Puppet Theatre, the Small Change Theatre, Nexus, Alain RobbeGrillet, Albert Wendt, David Lodge, Robert Hughes.

The festival director, Michael Maxwell, make no apologies for the international emphasis. His aim when he took up his fulltime position as director 10 months ago was to snare as many international artists as possible.

But not, he insists, at the expense of New Zealand content.

“What I wanted to do was bring international artists to New Zealand and, to complement them, bring back New Zealan-

ders who had gone abroad and achieved their own international standing,” he explains. “Take the pottery exhibition by Robert Shay, the American ceramic sculptor. He is in New Zealand already, travelling with a New Zealander, James Greig, who has a big reputation in Japan. The two are working with potters at a grassroots level throughout the country for three months, giving lectures, workshops, demonstrations. The exhibition in Wellington during the festival is the culmination of that project. “The idea is for the potters to benefit from an overseas visitor and also to give James Greig, as a New Zealander, a chance to exhibit here with an overseas artist”

And there is the New Zealand Puppet Festival, which will run for two weeks at the beginning of the arts festival.

“As soon as the local puppet people found that the Awaji Theatre from Japan would be here, they wanted to organise a festival of their own.

“Now we have several days of puppet festival with puppeteers from New Zealand, Australia, and Greece. They will present all

forms of puppetry. That’s another example of New Zealanders working with international people.

“The rationale behind the festival is the international link. I wanted a programme that would reflect the links between New Zealand and international artists.”

Maxwell believes he has achieved that in the festival’s programme. The feedback from people booking tickets has been good.

“Some have asked why haven’t you got so and so. Sometimes it has been a case of saying we wanted them but they turned down our invitation.

“One woman from Wellington wrote booking tickets for the Small Change Theatre, which is a Canadian mime group. She had looked through the programme and that was all she could find that her family could go to. “The family will really enjoy Small Change. They are wonderful entertainment. But I wrote back saying what about this, what about that, what about the lunch-time concerts. There really is a lot available.”

He has fielded complaints about the lack of New Zealand content by pointing out that 1000 New Zealanders are in the main festival programme, and many more in the Fringe Festival running alongside the main programme. “The 1000 takes in all the players in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the regional orchestras from Auckland

and Wellington, the dancers in the Royal New Zealand Ballet. In spite of some large overseas groups there are nowhere near that many overseas artists.” The largest international group is the Berlin Staatskapelle, the first overseas symphony orchestra to visit this country in 13 years. The festival organisers were able to bring the German musicians to New Zealand at the end of an Australian tour because the orchestra’s travel contract with Qantas included Wellington on the same leg as Australia.

“We had no travel costs to bring the 120 musicians on to New Zealand. If we had had travel expenses on top of the performance costs, I would have had to say, sadly, no.” As it is the package of two performances by the Berlin orchestra will cost $125,000. That is a large chunk from the festival budget, but well worth it, Mr Maxwell adds. He has been able to secure many of the international artists because they were already booked for the Perth and Adelaide festivals in Australia.

His first step when he was asked by the festival trust in late 1984 to direct the 1986 festival was to approach the organisers of the Australian festivals. They could not have been more helpful, he says. “It was a commercial thing. If they could offer the artists extra performances it was an incentive for them. Suddenly, New Zealand became a big factor in the Australian circuit.”

Mr Maxwell began full-time direction of the festival only last March. Time has been of the essence, and he admits there are things he could not make happen for 1986 because of a lack of time.

Funding — at least initially — was not a problem because the festival’s initiators, the Wellington City Council, set aside $lOO,OOO in its 1984-85 financial year and another $125,000 in the present year, plus $35,000 for a special programme at the Wellington City Art Gallery. Sponsors have kicked in with substantial contributions, some for special events, such as the American Express backing for Dame Joan’s performances. Michael Maxwell says he has about $1.3 million to work with in arranging performers, while the festival’s over-all budget is nearer $2.5 million to $3 million. Applications to the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council have turned, up nothing in funds but money

has come from the Departments of Foreign and Internal Affairs.

Mr Maxwell’s contract as director does not run out until after the 1988 festival. He looks to on-going City Council support — “It’s election year, but I think any council would continue what has been started” — and funds from Lotto or other such sources for 1988.

The Fringe Festival, which has been taken over by the Wellington Arts Centre, is being funded separately from sponsorship and has a budget of $lOO,OOO.

Contributions from national organisations based in Wellington, such as the New Zealand Symphony, the ballet, the National Film Archive, and the National Youth Choir, will be funded by each organisation. Mr Maxwell is delighted with the response from the many groups he wrote to asking for a special contribution for the festival. “The Ballet has brought Patricia Rianne and Chris Jiannides back from overseas to choreograph new ballets. Circa Theatre has Richard Campion working on ‘Waitangi,’ a work originally planned for 1990. They brought it forward for the festival.

“The galleries are organising individual exhibitors. The New Zealand Symphony has commissioned a festival work from Edwin Carr. The Auckland Philharmonia is coming down to Wellington, so are Limbs and the Spanish Fiesta Dancers from Mount Eden.”

There are also the 80-plus activities planned in the community which include wine tasting, a raku firing demonstration, crafts shows, the Benson and Hedges Fashion Design Awards, cooking demonstrations, a holography exhibition, a debate featuring the Oxford Union, the Wellington Home Show, an exhibition of Dame Joan’s opera gowns, and a festival of fitness and sport. Although Mr Maxwell is pleased with the 1986 programme, he has had some disappointments. The tapestries of Yvette Cauqull-Prince, listed in the programme, are now not coming because most of them were sold when they were exhibited in Switzerland.

And Mr Maxwell would dearly love to have had the Te Maori exhibition open in New Zealand as part of the festival. The exhibition is now not returning until July.

It would have added an extra Maori component to the festival, although Michael Maxwell says he has been careful to include as many cultures as possible without emphasising any one unduly. Another disappointment was the unavailability of the British actor, Alec Cowan, and his oneman show on Rudyard Kipling. Almost without exception, the interational artists will perform only in Wellington while in New Zealand. There have been inquiries from Christchurch and Auckland for some of the artists.

“I don’t think the people who made those inquiries realised what was involved in staging shows by those artists. Philip Glass, for instance, has 47 different pieces of electronic equipment to be transported, adapted, and set up,” Mr Maxwell says. For the festival team, which has now grown to 14 or 15 including part-time people and which will drop to four after the 1986 festival ends, the priority is to tie up any loose ends in readiness for the grand opening on March 5.

The festival begins with a parade through Wellington and a televised gala performance at the Michael Fowler Centre.