Dancing and speech all part of festival

Press, 12 May 1987, Page 3

Dancing and speech all part of festival

Two winners from the Christchurch Competitions Society’s May festival will have the opportunity to compete in the national finals in Rotorua later this year. Since the week-long competitions began on Saturday, up to 500 competitors from as far as Invercargill and the West Coast have entered the dancing, speech and drama, singing and instrumental sections being held at various venues in Christchurch.

Competitors in this year’s festival, which is the seventy-fifth, were

mostly schoolchildren but some were aged from as young as four to as old as 40, said the president of the Christchurch Society, Mr Harold Ricketts.

This year, winners from the ballet and speech and drama sections would represent Christchurch in the national Competitions Society finals in Tauranga.

Judges for the Christchurch competitions, which will end on Saturday, have come from Auckland, Hawke’s Bay, Rotorua, and Dunedin. The dancing sections being held at Heaton In-

termediate School include ballet, tap, Highland national and Irish traditional. Tap dancing finals should be completed today, but the other dancing sections would continue until the end of the week. Venues for the other sections are: speech and drama, St Mary’s Methodist Church, Merivale; instrumental, Riccarton Baptist Church, Peverel Street; vocal, Rugby Street Methodist Church Hall.