Christchurch Arts Festival Guarantees to Enchant

MEDIA RELEASE: For immediate release
CHRISTCHURCH ARTS FESTIVAL 2007
(26th July – August 12th 2007)

A cross-selection of multi-culture, arts and theatrics; Christchurch Arts Festival guarantees to enchant visitors this year.

The 7th biennial Christchurch Arts Festival begins its season of festivities on the 26th of July across a broad spectrum of venues which will cater for those interest from large-scale modern art to cutting-edge cabaret, intertwined with a delectable selection of smaller attractions for even the least inquisitive.

The splendour of the TV ONE WinterGarden is the highpoint of this years showcase; a visual and multimedia art spectacular with something to cater to everyone’s whim – new-technology artworks, interactive installations, modern takes of classical forms. The TelstraClear Club, housed centrally in the TV ONE WinterGarden sees performances from such established and up-and-coming acts as Eddie Perfect Says Drink Pepsi Bitch, Heard It on the Wireless, Don McGlashan and the Seven Sisters and Lauren Mitchell and The Oval Office’s CD launch. The TelstraClear Club is the centerpiece of the WinterGarden, and a major Festival performance venue.

Across the city, a plethora of talent, both local and international, awaits your viewing pleasure. The International contingent includes Danza Cuba with their evening of intense, exciting, passionate Caribbean performance of contemporary jazz, folkloric dance and Spanish Afro-Cuban heritage, the death-defying, eye-catching spectacle of Circus Oz, the surreal, contradictory and surreal transformations of French lyric theatre of Aurģlia’s Oratorio, the caustic, almost self-deprecating and self-examining view of Julia Migenes on opera in DIVA on the verge and the incredible quick-change acting theatrics of Ennio, who Time Out London proclaimed “…is performance at its crazy, creative, unfettered best”.

New Zealand’s artistic achievement strongly represented this year too; the world premiere of playwright Carl Nixon’s The Raft, the rich palette of light, darkness and motion explored by choreographer Julia Sadler’s Moth, tragicomedy theatrical performances of Duncan Sarkies’ acclaimed Instructions for Modern Living detailing the lonely modern lives of New Zealanders, the multi-lingual Strange Resting Places which sees a young Maori soldier in Italy during the Second World War and the controversial business practices of former Mayor of Invercargill Joseph Hatch brought to the stage in Geoff Chapple’s Hatch, or Plight of the Penguins.

What is a brief snapshot of what is on offer here can be full viewed in detail by visiting the official website of the festival, which also has hi-resolution images, at www.artsfestival.co.nz

ENDS

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