2008 Art is... PULLING STRINGS

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Festival Manager: Charee Lowe

The 2008 Art is.. pulling strings festival drew together many threads of music, artwork, puppets, people, street parades, agricultural shows and government grants. The festival committee challenged the concept of how we pull strings in our everyday life. How we use string in art. How we make beautiful music by pulling strings. How we pull at our heart strings. Overall, the festival's program highlighted so many things that connected the concept of pulling strings. The biggest was the partnership that linked four rural towns, four agricultural shows, five artists and a major arts festival.

The festival's opening ceremony saw large scale people puppets fall in love while farm animals danced with joy. There were larger than life size farmer puppets, cute ducks, funny pigs, a spectacular bull, terrific turkeys and even chickens, all which paraded down the main street leading the crowd to May Park to witness superb performances by Wimmera Women's Circus, Tribevous Belly Dance, Horsham Rockers and the wonderful sounds of Los Locos.

There was a fantastic range of exhibitions at the Horsham Regional Art gallery, The Maker's Gallery, local Cafes and venues. Galleries On the Side - exhibitions in shop windows throughout the CBD and the Horsham Plaza - made an acclaimed return to the 2007 festival.

Gentle shadow puppets filled Wesley Performing Arts Centre along with parents and children watching with awe as the story unfolded. On another day strings were played by Slava and Lenard Grigoryan. The various programmed activities for the six days of the festival were extremely well attended with an estimated audience of 20,000 in total.

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