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FESTIVAL

Colourful celebration of culture

Tuesday 25 March 2008, 5:09PM

By Palmerston North City Council

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PALMERSTON NORTH

The city’s most colourful event, the Festival Of Cultures, opens today and extends over six days until Sunday, March 30


The festival, involving more than 40 cultures and thousands of people, is a flamboyant celebration of Palmerston North’s cultural identity.


This year it offers a kaleidoscopic programme of theatre, dance, talks, café culture and a photographic competition over nearly a week leading to the main Festival Day, the World Food, Craft and Music Day on Saturday, March 29.


On that day people can sample the wonderful array of traditional food on offer from Africa, Asia, India, Brazil and Europe.


Among the many attractions during the festival will be free daytime musical entertainment on Sunday, March 30, where several city bars and cafes will join together between 12-4pm to offer the best of local and national ethnic singers and combos. Organiser, Karen Heaphy, says a leisurely walk around Palmerston North will give you the feeling that you’re in Dublin one minute and San Diego the next.


Local groups will perform Russian, Latin, Irish and Cook Island music. One distinctive performance will come from Palmerston North’s Warren Warbrick who will present haunting Maori music at the City Library.


Warren is a maker and player of Maori instruments which produce an ancient, unique sound. Warren makes his instruments from bird bone, wood, stone and shell and, by blowing into them, he releases their subtle and beautiful qualities. As a member of Ipurangi, he performed recently at Nelson’s Opera in the Park which also featured Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and young New Zealand international opera singers, Jonathan Lemalu and Simon O’Neill.


Karen Heaphy also encourages people to attend the powerful performance of Strange Resting Places, theatre with music and comedy in Maori, Italian and English, at The Globe from March 25-27 as part of Festival Of Cultures.


She assures people that their tastes, in every sense of the word, will be catered for in this year’s Festival Of Cultures.