Cultural treat for visitors today

Rosary, Lure Gallery.
Rosary, Lure Gallery.
It is endlessly fascinating what appeals to people.

The Otago Festival of the Arts is all about creative appreciation and it is always an interesting cultural exchange.

One member of the visiting Vienna Boys Choir, 13-year-old Felix, nearly lost his voice with excitement yesterday after being given a poster of the All Blacks by Radio Dunedin host Breffni O'Rourke.

Singer Whirimako Black was equally delighted to receive a couple of muttonbirds after her concert at Otago Girls' High School on Monday.

Many of the overseas performers are intrigued by New Zealand's Maori culture and the festival holds its traditional kapahaka welcome for our visiting guests today.

Brazilian dancers Bale Folclorico da Bahia and the casts of Where We Once Belonged and the Comrade Z Radio Hour will be officially welcomed with a kapahaka performance in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery at midday.

They will then respond with performances of their own.

Pop across the road to St Paul's Cathedral afterwards to see Trevor Coleman and Nick Cornish reinventing the classics in St Paul's at 1pm.

The eight-minute show Play is by no means the only free show to see this week. There are more than a dozen art exhibitions on during the festival, featuring artists including Yvonne Todd and Sir Frank Brangwyn (DPAG), Leila Ataya, Stephen Martyn-Welch and Luke Hollis (The Artist's Room), Paula Rego (Brett McDowell Gallery), Garry Currin and Peter James Smith (Milford Galleries), Ewan McDougall and Daniel Mills (Gallery De Novo), Pauline Bellamy and Emma Chalmers (Bellamys Gallery) and Anneloes Douglas (Mint Gallery).

Meanwhile, some of Dunedin's brightest jewellers and artists have created a ring of rosaries at the Lure jewellery gallery.

The end of the festival's kaleidoscopic tunnel is in sight and many shows have been and gone.

Tonight is your last chance to see the Comrade Z Radio Hour and Nga Hau E Wha.

But, there is still plenty of fun to come. The Late Night Festival Club in the Dunedin Public Art Gallery tonight features the return of former Dunedin guitarist Jimmy Taylor and former Beagle Boys bluesman Ray Pyne in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

 

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