“REAL PARTY”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 693, 19 June 1929, Page 11

“REAL PARTY”

Romance and Revelry Transform Town Hall ARTS BALL A GREAT SUCCESS “Hello,” said the charming Huguenot lady to Rastus, the flash nigger. “This is a real party.” Mandy, fresh from the cotton fields, toyed with Bluebeard’s golden scimitar, without fear of losing her head. A lovely Venetian lady might have stepped from her gondola on the Grand Canal, but instead she was lost in the maze of a dance with her Charles 11. cavalier. Two Tyrolese peasants exchanged light badinage with a swarthy Turk: and a fair creature from his harem. 'Sam,” a familiar fellow to Sun readers, ambled round with the “cat” burglar, two Chinese mandarins "talked imperiously behind Captain Kidd, and a courtier of Queen Elizabeth’s day. There were princesses and a death’s head, people from fairy stories, South Sea islanders, and hundreds of figures from the pages of history and romance. Yes, the Arts Ball was a great success. Over 1,000 couples representing almost every nation and every period, except the Garden of Eden, turned the barren Town Hall into a fantastic scene. Noah’s Ark figures decorated the walls, along with quaint old inn signs and rich Chinese embroidery'. Crowds watched the arrival of the revellers at the Grey Avenue entrance, and hailed with amusement a laundry van containing eight nigger minstrels. From the circle of the hall the "lookers-on” enjoyed the swirling scene below, and voted it the best that Auckland has seen for many a day. The committee is to be congratulated on its splendid arrangements—decorations, supper, music, incidental episodes, particularly the dance of the Toy Soldiers, were all part of a scheme which made the Arts Ball a wonderful success.