If you noticed the dazed, dozy, starry-eyed students wandering around at the beginning of the term and you are wondering what happened here's the answer - a week at the Student Arts Festival.

If anyone was going to complain about the Arts Festival (held in Christchurch, May 5-12) there would be one overriding argument - too much to see in too little time. Although incredibly well organised (thank-you John Page and many others) it was a hectic week with each day's events starting at 10 am and going through to the early hours. Anyone who was going to try and see everything they were interested in had to be in top gear from go to woe.

Sunday's opening started with a Concerto for Twenty-odd car horns. Armed with a screwdriver for a baton the conducter, Phillip Norman, managed to co-ordiante the car-horn honkers into what was, surprisingly aptly, termed an arpeggio. A large crowd stood in the rain and applauded their way into a renewed blast or, in musical terms, an encore.

Despite the weather enthusiasm was high at the Grand Opening. Later in the afternoon John Gadsy kept the crowd amused during a Poetathlon; five people read peotry as they performed various feats round an obstacle course. Wading through the icy cold Ilam stream, drinking wine, hurdling and a sack race were nothing to the orators who performed bravely in the name of art.

On a more formal note the Festival was officially opened by the Minister for the Arts, Hon Mr Alan Highet. Mr Highet spoke about the Youth Initiatives Fund which was established in December 1977 as "the Governments response to the social effects on young people of the unemployment situation." Jobs in the arts have been created for a lot of young people, including some of the festival organisers, under this scheme.

The organisers certainly did their job incredibly well and John Page, the director, who has been working towards the Festival for over a year, certainly deserves more than a pat on the back. Some of the groups performing, such as the Chameleon Theatre Group, are employed under the Temporary Employment Scheme. It seems crazy that it takes an unemployment situation before people are paid by the Government to work in the Arts.

The highlight of Sunday evening was the Tripple Ripple Rock Concert held in the Town Hall - the "tripple" being Te Aroha, a predominantly Maori band, Citizen Band, and an Auckland group; and, fresh from Australia, the Phil Manning Band. The latter certainly provided the "ripple" particularly the band's leading guitarist and names like Phil Manning, and their newly acquired guitarist-cum-blues harp player Midge Marsden (a New Zealand boy who used to play in Country Flyers.)

Music

Music at the Festival didn't stop at Rock, in fact it was hardly noticed there was so much else going on. Folk and Jazz concerts and "workshops" were also held giving people a chance to listen to the greats and then have a go themselves.

The Folk section was organised by Rob Lake and performers including Wellington's Marg Layton and Paul Metsers, Brendan Power (Nelson) and many more.

The Jazz section included dixieland and street bands and the highlight was a Jazz concert starring Bob Bradfords Big Band, Doug Caldwell Trio, Malcolm McNeillands sextet and the Bobcats. The classical section included an opera, "Dido and Aeneas" and lots of concerts from professional to amateur and university groups.

A pair of musicians who didn't want to be classified as any particular "type" of music were a group called Negative Theatre. John McLearly and Louise Loft with their guitars performed their own music - mainly personal and protest lyrics in a variety of styles. They included dramatic effects in their act and although they had only performed in public twice previously they were very well recieved. Perhpas the strength of their performances came from the sincerity with which they sang.

Drama

The outstanding feature of the drama at the festival was the number of groups performing either their own or New Zealand written plays.

Particularly popular were the Chameleon Theatre Group whose repertoire ranged from a documentary style play, "Leonard and Virginia" — a look at the intellectual Bloomsbury Group, to clowning in the square.

Dynamic new styles for theatre were also presented by The Plague and Jam Burlesque - the latter who seem to be a little too obsessed with sexuality. Plays by three New Zealanders - Alan Trussell - Cullen, Gordan Dryland and/a younger writer Peter Tait:—were presented with a commendable degree of success, although they all centred around similar domestic scenes.

The university revues from Victoria and Auckland were very popular, Otago didn't show up and Massey's wasn't quite up to standard, judging by audience reaction. What more can I say - everyone is a little patriotic. The theatre workshops were a great success - young actors and actresses saw the chance of instruction from recognised artists and grabbed it.

Children

Childrens events became a festival of thin own and included plays, clowns, workshops (for parents and children) and an adventure playground. Particularly enjoyable were two of the three plays by Gay Cusack which were presented: "Archibald Snowaddles Magic Custard" and "The Gravy Blobs". With names like that how could they miss?

Dance

Predictably Limbs were the highlight of the Dance section, but a lot of people worked hard and even the beginners workshop group entertained the public with their "Fashion Parade" which featured a variety of legs, heads, arms and faces that can be worn on different occasions.

Poetry and Film

A wide variety of poets read their own poems during the week. Among the well-knowns were Peter Olds, Lauris Edmond and Alistair Paterson. In addition to [unclear: tm] ding, Ken Hudson presented a poem and a short story at films he had made. [unclear: These] showed how well someone can make a film, although inexperienced, if he has good ideas behind him.

Ken's films were a great contrast to the ones we saw made by students from the school division of the Fine Arts Schools These films were a bad reflection of what happens when ambitious film-making [unclear: open] rations are undertaken by people with [unclear: the] limited technical skills and only partly [unclear: developed] ideas.

Visual

Other visual displays included photography - from instamatic shots to first [unclear: class] "professional" ones — and artwork by [unclear: people] of all ages.

Fringe

Fringe arts is a term invented for [unclear: evl] thing that couldn't be classed as anything else. They ranged from "Ye Battle of [unclear: ye] Studass Pass" starring Alf's Imperial [unclear: Army] to the "National Frisbee Fling."

The highlight of the fringes was [unclear: pro] bly a debate; "That Vanity is the best [unclear: people]", held in the Town Hall. Over 600 lookers cheered and booed while Bob [unclear: joe] A. K. Grant, the Wizard and other "[unclear: cell] ties" hurled abuse at each other.

Multi Media

The proposed highlight of Tuesday, [unclear: va] "Multi Media", was a bit of an [unclear: anrichrofl] many. It was a case of being in the right at the right time and if you weren't there missed out. The Student Union Building "transformed into an organic artwork" [unclear: was] you were too early, or too late, you [unclear: miss] out on Limbs (in an otherwise empty [unclear: hi] tube), films, drama and a "metal [unclear: orchestra] Queueing for each event led to high [unclear: expect] tations which were often left unfulfilled.

An estimated 12 to 15,000 of the [unclear: $15] $20 tickets to the festival were sold yet [unclear: tye] organisers only hoped to "break even" [unclear: does] pite the $55,000 grant they recieved from the Student Arts Council However. [unclear: v] few of the hundreds of people involved [unclear: wa] deny that it was money well-spent. [unclear: Ro] the next festival.