Shell National Folkloric Festival
Australian festival celebrating ethnic folklore / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shell National Folkloric Festival was an annual ethnic folk festival held in Australia. Sponsored by the Shell-Sydney Opera House Foundation[1] with a grant of $50,000, the first Festival was held at the Concert Hall during the opening celebrations of the Sydney Opera House in 1973.[2] The festivals were held in Sydney but were later also held in Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin and Brisbane.[3]
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/Boyan_and_Tyravska.jpg/640px-Boyan_and_Tyravska.jpg)
In 1975 one thousand performers, representing 30 ethnic groups living in Australia, performed folk music, song and dance at the Opera House,[2] and by 1982 this had grown to 1400 performers representing 48 different ethnic groups.[4][5]
One of its first producer-directors was Victor Carell (Victor Thomas Cioccarelli),[6] who with his wife Beth Dean (a notable Australian ballerina and choreographer) auditioned ethnic groups in Sydney, Adelaide. Canberra, and Wollongong for the festival.
From 1979 to 1994, Guillermo Keys-Arenas was the major artistic producer-director of the annual event.[1][3]