Arts for All

The tenth annual New Zealand Universities' Arts Festival will be held in Auckland from August 12 to 17. The Festival is the major inter-university cultural event and will this year bring more than one thousands students to Auckland.

The programme will cover all aspects of the Arts, even a Pooh - reading competition which replaces the usual Pooh Sticks competition; the Harbour Bridge Authority would not lend the students their bridge.

The bandstand in Albert Park will be the venue for open-air iazz and modern dance concerts and for midnight poetry readings.

The proqramme includes the New Zealand premier of the new French film "Far from Vietnam". There will also be screening of works by various student film-makers.

The E. C. Lackland Universities' Photography Award was instituted for the 1968 Festival. Entries are already arriving and a series on the sunken Wahine is a major attraction.

Drama productions from five universities will be staged throuqhout the week.

Informal workshop sessions will be a feature of both the iazz and folk sections.

Both will also stage concerts in the Auckland Town Hail Concert Chamber and another folk concert will be held in the Town Hall.

The Hamilton County Bluegrass Band and Wellington singer Val Murphy are featured artists for the Town Hall folk concert.

Jug band exponents at the Festival will include such exotics as the Mad Dog Blues, Jug, Jook, and Washboard Band and the Kelburn International Airport Ceremonial Honour Guard Band from Wellington.

The chess and bridge festivals have also attracted large entries.

There will be a telegraphic chess test match against combined Sydney universities.

Lunch-time concerts in the McLaurin Chapel Hall will be a feature of the music section. A choir of eighty from Victoria University will also perform during the week.

Spoken work will be heard from debaters at the annual inter-university Joynt Scroll contest, and from entrants in the Bledisloe Medal Oratory contest.