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Part of Queen St will be closed for a free music party that will launch 18 days of arts, culture and entertainment at the city's fourth biennial arts festival in March.
The Queen St Sing Sing will celebrate the cultures of Oceania and the Pacific on a stage set up near the bottom end of Aotea Square on March 7 with a diverse combination of singers, musicians and dancers from West Papua, New Caledonia, Polynesia and local Maori.
The singalong, presented by Auckland City Council and Heart of the City, will run through the afternoon and into the evening and include food and market stalls. Queen St, from Wellesley St to Mayoral Drive, will be closed for the Saturday event.
Another popular event developed in partnership with a major sponsor will be the New Zealand Post Family Weekend on March 14-15 that includes performances of Peter and the Wolf by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, a magical puppet show, The Arrival, and an Australian show, Fluff.
It is the third festival under director David Malacari. He says the true worth of the festival lies in the social and cultural value it adds to the city.
As well as the popular programme of events, Mr Malacari wants artists and audiences to be more ambitious and extend their own theatrical language.
The festival programme includes more than 200 performances, exhibitions, concerts and other events.
This year the festival hub will be based around Aotea Square. Red Square, as the hub was known in 2007 at Britomart, will once again include the popular Spiegeltent.
The programme for the festival is available from today. Tickets go on sale from next Wednesday.
www.aucklandfestival.co.nz
