Centenary boost for festival
12:08pm Thursday 13th April 2006 in News By Paul Langan
Liz Sharp
THE 100th Wharfedale Festival of Performing Arts will begin on May 13 with organisers announcing a major success in broadening the appeal of the event.
For the first time ever, three schools from inner-city Bradford will be sending children to take part in the music, drama and dance competition.
On Monday, May 15, the Speech and Drama classes begin at the Baptist Church and the Riddings Hall. Although this year, entries in this discipline are slightly lower than over the last two years, in certain areas, they are definitely higher, with a record 63 spread across the primary school classes aimed at inner city Bradford, the Novice class and the Non Christian Religious Reading class.
Festival secretary Liz Sharp said: "Especially gratifying has been the increased response to this area of the Festival as since it began, it involved only Westbourne Primary School. This year, Lilycroft Primary and Margaret McMillan Primary Schools have also answered the call.
"This has been an especial source of pride and pleasure to me, because in spite of being placed in special measures 18 months ago, Westbourne School has continued to support the Festival.
"The Learning Mentor, Latif Mir, who worked closely with me for two years - as I taught the children performance skills - is feeling sufficiently confident to continue the work without my help."
Mrs Sharp said she hoped that the sessions involving the children could attract local audiences to watch their performance. There are two large classes of poetry and Koran readings in the Riddings Hall on the Monday afternoon from 2pm. A smaller group of Asian children will appear at the Baptist Church Lounge doing the same thing between 5.30pm and 6pm.
"These are children whose horizons open no further than Listers' Mill chimney and have no conception of what lies even a couple of miles beyond it, so riding through beautiful rural Yorkshire to lovely Ilkley and setting foot in a Christian church are simply mind-boggling imaginings at this moment," said Mrs Sharp.
On Sunday, May 14, the festival will be welcomed to Christchurch which this year will be hosting a special Service of Rededication and Celebration.
Theatre Time continues to pull in a number of entries across the two age ranges, which guarantees an evening of great entertainment at the Riddings Hall on Monday night from 6pm. The results of the Poetry Writing competition will be announced by the adjudicator, Pauline Kirk, and the winning poems and completed stories read. A selection of the poems will be on display throughout the week in the Lower Hall at Christchurch, The Grove.
Music making, including big bands and Asian music, carries on throughout the week and on Saturday, May 20.
The Spooner Trust is once again generously offering sponsorship for the Gala Concert at the King's Hall, which will again showcase many of the most glittering performances of the week, including the winner of last November's Wharfedale Festival of Performing Arts Dance Championship, and also hopefully the Asian Dance Champion, the presentation of the BBC Radio Leeds Poetry Cup to the most outstanding poetry writer, and last year's Festival Popstar winner.
The Gala Concert will again include an element of professional performances to make it a truly Celebrity Gala Evening, in a bid to attract a wider audience with Marie Dixon, an adjudicator of Speech and Drama earlier in the week, who will perform part of her Marie Lloyd routine, featuring in this exciting evening, with solo items from concert pianist Jeremy Russell.
As part of the centenary celebrations, the most outstanding festival performance at the Gala Concert will be rewarded with the Festival Centenary Star Award.
Tickets to Gala Night will be available early May from the Tourist Information Centre at £8 adult, £2.50 for under-18s.
Festival programmes will be available there and from Grove Music.
