More than yachting at Perth

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 18

More than yachting at Perth

The 1987 Festival of Perth will be staged a little earlier than usual to link with the America’s Cup finals. It will begin on January 30 and continue until February 22. The Perth arts festival is well established — the 1987 event will be the thirty-fifth in the series — and is acclaimed for its standards and scope in performing and fine arts.

“It is one of the major arts festivals in this part of the world,” says Mr Garry Hanstead, New Zealand manager of the Western Australian Tourism Commission, “but in New Zealand it is much less familiar than the Adelaide Festival. “However, with Australia’s international standing in the arts be- , coming more and more of

a drawcard for New Zealanders, the Festival of Perth has over the past two years become much better known.” Mr Hanstead expects the large number of New Zealanders visiting Perth for the America’s Cup will lead to more interest in future Perth festivals. New Zealand will be represented in the 1987

festival, with the Limbs Dance Company performing. Others in the programme are the Sydney Dance Company, the Aboriginal Dance Company, the Trisha Brown Dance Company from New York, the Phoenix Dance Company of Britain, and Canada’s Desrosiers Dance Theatre

and Ballet Jazz de Montreal. Mr Hanstead says that the festival is embracing, with symphony, jazz, folk and rock music,, theatre, dance, a children’s festival, film, television, visual arts and literature, and a military music tattoo featuring the bands of the Irish Guards, the Seventh Fleet and the

Royal Australian Army and Navy. Other international performers are the Royal Danish Orchestra, the Oscar Peterson Quartet, Paco Pena from Spain, the Grace Cathedral Choir from San Francisco, the Steppenwolf Theatre Company from Chicago, Eire’s Druid Theatre, Canada’s Theatre de la Marmaille and Czechoslovakia’s Slovak Chamber Orchestra.