Interactive Anzac Event Reaches 4 Year Milestone

Press Release

Completely Unique, Interactive Anzac Event Reaches 4 Year Milestone

‘Lest We Forget’ – a fully interactive, living history event held annually at Founders Heritage Park, Nelson. April 24th and 25th 2011 from 10am – 4pm both days – wet or fine.

‘Lest We Forget’, New Zealand’s unique ANZAC Weekend Commemorative event is now in its fourth year, the only truly’ living history’ event of its kind and scope.

Members of the Dramatix Theatre Development Trust co-ordinate volunteers and community groups to present an opportunity to remember and learn, bringing to life some of the experiences of our parents and grand-parents who were caught up in World War.

‘Utilising multi-media, original theatre, street re-enactments, storyboards of personal wartime histories from Top of the South men, women and children, music, ‘Taste and Try’ Wartime baking, through drama, comedy, battle and airraid re-enactment, everyone who visits ‘Lest We Forget’ takes away something different’ says Dramatix Trust member TJ Ramsay.

This year visitors could - in the space of a day – join the Resistance and face capture by Germans or disclosure from collaborators, purchase ration coupons and try Woolton Pie or carrot jam, face the drama of an Air-raids, farewell evacuee children, discover the Pacific Walk and get their family portrait taken in period costume.

Or perhaps they will take coffee in the middle of the ‘Allo ‘Allo set, sing along to war-time favourites like Tipperary, read the memories of Land girls and POWS, soldiers, sailors and Home guardsmen, lunch at the Field Kitchen, watch Nylons & Knicker Elastic in the Theatre and listen to world renowned expert Bruce Petty talk on the Pacific War.

Founders Heritage Park is a wonderful venue for ‘Lest We Forget’ and the majority of Park businesses get involved, such as John and Carol Duncan’s Café turning itself into Café Rene’s each year, where customers will suddenly find themselves in the middle of ‘Allo Allo’ sketches, to Daniel Allen making his photography studio available for a ‘sniper’s’ hidey hole last year.

The streets of Founders come to vivid life, with all the sights, sounds and flavours from times that changed our history and united us strongly as New Zealanders.

Comments from visitors have illustrated the power of the event - ‘That was me.’

said one man watching the child evacuees being sent away from home, ‘That was me and I haven’t told anyone. Not my wife, not my children.’

‘I didn’t know these things happened.’ One woman told performers involved in the ‘Holocaust’ display. ‘I had no idea.’

This year, an education programme, which some Nelson schools are taking the chance to visit, will run prior to the event itself. Students will participate in hour long classes based on aspects of ‘Lest We Forget’ with the focus on education for late primary aged school children. Using living history performers, storyboards, and sound effects to bring domestic wartime experiences to this will be a memorable, educational experience.

Last year, ‘Lest We Forget’ was adopted as the finale of Nelson City Council’s Heritage Week programme. A free double decker bus operates thanks to Nelson Coachlines from Richmond to Founders park via Stoke & Tahuna.

‘Lest We Forget’ makes no judgments as impossibly terrible things are done on both sides of any conflict in war, we merely present what happened. Some of our displays carry warnings for the sensitive or those who just don’t want to know or re-learn. There is no doubt, we can learn about events in film, in books, through images but seeing these things being re-enacted in front of your eyes can bring them home in an unforgettable way. Ramsay says.

In keeping with the Dramatix Theatre Development Trust’s mission statement, for quality theatre to be available to all, the gate price has been kept at $2 a head for all ages and the theatre presentations at $10. Ramsay says, ‘We want as many people to experience as much as they can. None of this is possible without our sponsors and the team of passionately dedicated volunteers from all walks of life who give so much time and effort to bring ‘Lest We Forget’ to life’.

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