... Indian Festival THE THIRD Festival of Arts of India opened at the Queen Elizabeth Hall this week. It will also be seen in Manchester, Bristol. Bath. Cheltenham and Corby and at the Queen Eliza beth Hall again on July 14 and 15. The Festival features song, music, dance and drums from the North and South of India and features sixteen artists in solos and ensembles. They are Sitltleshwan Devi, ...

... Foretaste of 'Ring' THE FORTHCOMING two complete cycles of Wagner's Ring in Andrew Porter's translation constitute this year's major operatic achievement at the Coliseum, giving English-speaking audiences their first chance to fully understand the text of this great and complex work while it is being sung A foretaste, as it were, is now available on a couple of discs which Sadler's Wells ...

... Nigerian National Troupe AS PART of their two-month tour of Eastern and Western Europe, the Nigerian National Troupe are this week presenting a Fantasia of Dance and Music at the Round House. The programme is made up of song. instrumental playing and dance, ritual, courtly and pea sant of the Northern and South-Eastern States and of the Edo people. It ends with the Nigerian equivalent of ...

... ABBEY OPERA DISASTERS, they say, come in threes. So apparently do revivals of Iolanta, the Tchaikovsky one- act opera about the blind daughter of that mythical-historical King Rene of Provence who provided one unfortunate queen for England and numerous libretti and plots. The Camden Festival revived Io lanta in the early sixties and the English Opera Company are about to add it to their ...

... Poor Gulbenkian A SECOND LOOK at Ballet Gulbenkian did nothing to alter one's first impression that this is a company without any genuine creativity, despite the presence of talented dancers and good presentation. The two new pieces introduced on ?iuiy it at saaiers wells Theatre both showed up the absence of a true company style, and in both instances the experimental side of the work was ...

... Last takes over from Jenner DESMOND KELLY has a presence which exudes nobility and his dancing of prince roles is, in this respect, unmatched by anyone in the Royal Ballet. At Covent harden on July 12 he danced nis first Prince Florimund in The Sleeping Beaty. giving the role his customary unhurried elegance, positive reactions, clear mime and in valuable assistance in lifts. It was hard ...

... Blair's farewell to dancing NOSTALGIA was the dominant emotion at Covent Garden on June 25 when David Blair danced Colas in La Fille mal gardge as his farewell performance with the Royal Ballet. This is the part he created in 1960 and was an ideal choice to round off a re warding dancing career, during which he has given a great deal of pleasure, from his early Sad ler's Wells days in ...

... Good spoofs I LIKE MY SHERRY DRY, but found Bristol Cream, the Bristol University revue which uncorked itself in the Little after several libations on the Edinburgh Festival fringe, very much to mv taste. It is sophisticated, in the best possible sense, slick and polished to a fine professional gloss. Best of all, the lesson keep it short has been well and truly taken to heart, then put into ...

... Brilliant Chinese acrobats WHEN THE CHINESE Acrobatic Theatre from Shanghai opened their all too short season of eleven nights at the Coliseum on July 3 it seemed that every Chinese man and woman, not to mention a lot of their children, were in the dience and one wondered at the fate of anybody fancying a Chinese meal in town that night. But there were plenty of British natives present as ...

... o'Casey masterpiece Sean o'Casey's Juno and the Paycock, one of the greatest plays of the century, has a somewhat subdued yet deeply moving production at the Mermaid, the wonderful woman of the title being portrayed with rare understanding and depth quite without the aid of spec tacular show, by Siobhan McKenna. The production was to have been directed by Sean Kenny; when he died shortly ...

... Bush Davies 'Our Way' ONE really commendable aspect of the performance by Bush Davies Schools' students at the Adeline Genee at East Grinstead on July 21 was their projection. Nothing about their work was half-hearted and the decision to stage their own show. Our Way. instead of reconstructing a full-length ballet, was completely justified bv the results. The range of dance items on show ...

... Royal Ballet School AFTER THE SPLENDOURS of the annual matinee at the Royal Opera House, students of the Royal Ballet School get down to the more slogging routine of a week at Richmond followed by open-air performances in Holland Park, both times in tront of less ex clusively balletic audiences. The Richmond week opened on July 16 with a triple bill, which included Alfred Rodri- gues' ...