Applaud Christchurch
Nowhere in New Zealand looks as good as Christchurch in spring and every two years the city celebrates the coming spring and summer with the Applaud Arts Festival.
Now rolling out the programme for its sixth edition, the festival has become a familiar part of Christchurch’s cultural scene thanks to continued backing of the Christchurch City Council, the festival’s core funder.
The festival has become “incredibly successful”, Mayor Garry Moore told a large audience gathered at the Isaac Theatre Royal for the launch recently. Mr Moore is festival patron.
“This festival has set a superb standard,” he said. “Here’s to another wonderful festival and to all of us who are going to have a wonderful time.”
Applaud is New Zealand’s largest regional festival, and sets the standard for all other festivals in New Zealand, said Judith Tizard, the Associate Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage. “I can think of no other festival in the country which has so little controversy except in its content and where, after each festival, the debate is how to do it better the next time.”
Highlights on the festival programme include Canadian circus troupe, Cirque Eloize’s Nomade, Christchurch’s symphony orchestra playing tribute to the Maniototo in Timeless Land, the New Zealand Community Trust Woolston Brass Brand feature in King and Country and the world premiere of Peninsula at the Court Theatre.
The social hub of Applaud will again be the TV One Pavilion in Victoria Square — home to the jazz and cabaret seasons.
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Peninsula, a play written and directed by Gary Henderson, shows at the Court Theatre as part of Applaud. It is about a 10-year-old Akaroa boy in the 1960s. Like the volcanos which formed Banks Peninsula, there are rumblings in the boy’s life and the resulting eruption will change him forever. |
- Applaud Christchurch Arts Festival 2005 runs from 20 July-8 August. The programme is online at www.artsfestival.co.nz or pick up the purple programme from outlets across the city or phone 0800 ARTS 05
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