Music at the Christchurch Festival was dominated by the Victoria contingent: Evelyn Killoh, Susan Jones, Penelope Saunders, Robin Maconie, Peter Merz, and Maurice Quinn. We certainly hope that Massey are invited to put this on at Victoria. It is an unproven assumption in psychology, that our minds are crowned with an "ego" -that we do, in fact, have a true self." But is this true, or is it, as the play suggests that our minds, our "selves" are simply the momentary resultant of our emotions? It's enough to make an existentialist reach for his Bible. The disturbing effect of this play is that it suggests that none of the elements in our personalities is dominant. All we can be sure of is the image on our retina the rest is inference. The effectiveness of the setting can perhaps be traced to the doctrine that nothing is real but the thoughts and impressions in our heads. "Jealousy" on the other hand, dressed in green cloak and makeup, is vindictive and terrible. Despite all the emotional crises which evolve in the play he continues to read through his pile of typewritten cards, mentioning particular phrases that someone has used in the past odd fragments of past impressions. "Memory" for example is cool and rational. Coppard) and produced by Massey Agricultural College (that's one in the eye for the "cultural" universities!) The unique setting is a man's mind with memory, operation, hearing, vision, anger, fear, and jealousy acting within it. art, particularly in the literary field tends toward the former extreme. Surrealism, or prose in nonsense language), and complete communication means that the message is trivial. Complete self - expression communicates nothing (e.g. Perhaps we can develop his remarks by saying that there is a "complementarity principle" between these two terms. Communication is just as important as self-expression. Professor Rhodes, in his address, emphasised this point-the artist must cease to be introspective for its own sake, he must establish contact with the community. Words, words, words written by superficial pseudo-poets in love with the image of their own personalities, and pretentious prose-writers having the intellectual stature of an amoeba and the verbal ability of a horse! The triumph or communication is non-communication. Write down the words first and wonder what it means afterwards. But this is surely not the attitude of a genuine artist? Jimmy Baxter, for example, is sincere and conscientious in his approach to life he is keen to engage to understand the other man's feelings he his art.īut the attitude at the Arts Festival is exactly the opposite. Their aim is to play the eccentric, to strike a pose, to be Inscrutable. The approach to Art of New Zealand's youth is reflected in these ways of dress.
It is the national drama, ballet and opera organisations which are building, however slowly, an art in New Zealand. What we do lack in this country is rather a sense of the value of art, and the chance for it to be presented and appreciated. "Many regard the lack of an authentic New Zealand culture as our greatest omission, but the desperate attempt to produce an art of our own usually degenerates into good-cobber Kiwism, with the peculiar point of view that we remain uncultured until we can develop an art circumscribed by our accidental boundaries in space and time. "It is exceedingly difficult to speak of art and/or culture without appearing to ride the intellectual hobby horse of the great gods Art and Culture, two beings who are at least as obnoxious as the much despised Mammon, yet we do feel inclined to lament the fact that New Zealand lies materially happy if spiritually enervated in a cultural backwater.
The opening statement by Don Locke, the Arts Festival controller, is well worth reprinting in full:
The programme, subsidised by Shell, was magnificent. A great deal of work went into the organisation of the second students' Arts' Festival in New Zealand.
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