Village Squire, 1977-11, Page 48Update
Tidbits of interesting information
from around Western Ontario
The final night of the 1977 Stratford
Festival season in mid-October brought to
an end a spectacularly successful season.
More than a half -million people paid to
see shows at the festival filling about 87
per cent of the seats for the 348
performances, including concerts. Ticket
sales totaled in the neighbourhood of $4.2
million. Meanwhile most of the famous
actors are off to spots around the world to
pursue their careers.
EXETER TOWN HALL RESTORATIONS
PROCEEDING
A year ago this month Village Squire
published an article on the trials and
tribulations of Exeter citizens trying to
restore their old town hall. Despite the
problems encountered along the way, the
project is now proceeding well.
Those who have travelled through the
town in recent weeks will have seen the
removal of the old white paint from the
yellow brick building proceeding. The
belfry, which was rebuilt by a London
company, is expected to be put back in
place by early November.
Inside restoration work on the hall began
in 1975. Several shops will be housed on
the main floor and upstairs there is a
community hall. All is being restored
under the careful eye of the Ontario
Heritage Foundation which has promised
grants. To get that money, however, local
money must also be raised. The Exeter
committee hopes to raise $50-60 thousand
in the next while.
GOURMET COURSE ATTRACTS 36
Thirty-six persons, 11 in the day class
and 25 in the nightclass are taking part in
the Stylish Entertainment course being
offered by Rundles Restaurant in Stratford.
The 10 -week course tells students how to
prepare and present food, how to taste
wine and other details of properly
presenting food. Each class ends with a
gourmet meal. The participants pay $150
each to take the course.
GALLERY GETS ARTIFACTS
The Gallery/Stratford, has been made
several new acquisitions. The Australian
Aboriginal Arts Board which had gathered
130 pieces of aboriginal art for a tour of 13
Canadian galleries donated four aboriginal
pieces to the Stratford gallery. It split the
pieces in the exhibit among the Canadian
galleries rather than ship them back to
Australia.
The largest of the four pieces donated to
Gallery Stratford is a decorated hollow
wooden burial pole, about 20 years old and
of a type still used by Tiwiland aborigines.
46,VILLAGE SQUIRE/NOVEMBER,1977.
When someone died. the body was left on a
table in the sun to dry then the bones were
placed inside the pole and both eventually
rot away.
Gallery Stratford has also acquired two
carved wooden ceremonial figures, one
female and the other male. The focal point
of certain rituals, they represented
mythical ancestors of The Dream Time, the
equivalent in aboriginal lore of the time
when the world was created.
The fourth, and smallest piece. is a
boomerang.
Gallery director Robert Swain said the
value of the artifacts had not been
determined, nor was he sure exactly when
the pieces would be put on display.
BUSY WINTER PROGRAM AT BLYTH
Blyth Centre for the Arts, the sponsoring
body of the Blyth Summer Festival has
announced a busy winter program as well.
Several theatre attractions have been
booked including last month's Shakespeare
for Fun and Profit by Theatre Passe
Muraille and Pauline Johnston. a show on
the famous Canadian Indian poetess on
Nov. 8.(see Around Town).
In addition, the Centre will sponsor
Saturday matinee movies for children once
a month until spring and will present a
series of movies for adults on the first
Tuesday of each month. Also planned is an
art show with local artists invited to take
part.
The Summer Festival ended a very
successful season attracting more than
10,000 see its shows.
ART WHEELS ROLLS AGAIN
"Art Wheels", a mobile art gallery
sponsored by the University of Guelph and
the Wellington County Board of Education,
has started rolling again for its fall tour of
the schools in Wellington County.
An exhibition of prints by 14 University
of Guelph Fine Art students will tour in the
van until January 1978. The show will
include various types of print -making
techniques, such as lithography, etching,
silkscreen, woodcuts, aquatints and
viscosity.
The show was organized by Heather
Hatch, assistant to the curator of art in
response to secondary school students'
requests to see an exhibition of work by
University students. Previous exhibitions
have been drawn from the University of
Guelph permanent collection.
This print exhibition by the Fine Art
students will tour over 50 schools and be
seen by approximately 20.000 primary and
secondary school students.
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