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Festivals and Celebrations

Melbourne celebrates
On the eve of the opening ceremony of the Games, an estimated 250,000 people thronged the streets of Melbourne in a fever of excitement. Apart from the crowds, one of the most visible expressions of Olympic fever was the decoration of the city streets with lighting and signs. The centrepiece of these was the 60-foot replica of the Olympic Torch that was suspended above the intersection of Flinders and Swanston Streets. Fourteen city blocks were decorated with lighting and signs at a cost of £37,000. The designs for the street motifs were said to be the most startling the city had seen.

During the Games the Olympic fever manifested itself in gala balls and various civic receptions as well as countless parties and entertainment events. A surf carnival was held at Torquay, near the provincial city of Geelong. There was a production of 'Olympic Follies' at the famed Tivoli Theatre and, for the more spiritually minded, there were religious festivals. An estimated 90,000 attended special church services in Como Park on the first Sunday of the Games. The organisers of the Games had set up a Civic Committee to plan and promote many of these events. The most significant event organised by this committee was the Olympic Arts Festival.

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The Arts and the Olympics
The first official Olympic Arts Festival was held at the Melbourne Games. From 1912 to 1948 arts competitions had been staged at each of the Games, with artists being awarded medals in much the same way as athletes were. During the late 1940s there was considerable debate about the place of the arts at Olympic Games and in 1949 the IOC decided to replace the arts competitions with exhibitions. The danger of commercialisation of the Games and a concern about the quality of the entries were given as reasons for this decision. Although there was a backlash against this decision and the IOC was forced to reverse its policy, no arts competitions were staged at the Helsinki Games of 1952. An arts festival was staged at Helsinki but it had no official status and was held only on an informal basis. In May 1954 the IOC again endorsed an official arts festival instead of arts competition for the next Games.

The Olympic Arts Festival - Melbourne 1956
The inaugural Olympic Arts Festival began on 18 November and ran until 15 December. The festival was divided into two main sections, visual arts and literature and music and drama, and was designed to reflect Australian and international work. Games organisers made available a sum of £4,000 for the festival.
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Visual arts and Literature
The visual arts sections included exhibitions of paintings, drawings, aboriginal art, commercial art, ceramics, industrial design, architecture and sculpture at several venues in Melbourne. Many works were shown at the National Gallery of Victoria, then in Swanston Street, while others were shown at universities and at the National Museum.

A display of literature at the Public Library of Victoria featured many items about the early history of Australia and some of the treasures of world literature. Among these were James Cook's journal written on board the 'Endeavour' and the oldest book in the Library, De Musica by Boethius, dating from 960 AD.

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Music and Drama
Opera, orchestral works, and chamber music were performed in the varied musical program. Several of the concerts were held in the Royal Botanic Gardens on the two Sundays when there was no Olympic competition. A highlight of the orchestral program was the performance by the Victorian and Sydney symphony orchestras in the Olympic Pool complex on a stage suspended above the diving pool.

The main feature of the opera program was the performance of two major international artists, Sena Jurinac and Sesto Bruscanti, in a number of Mozart operas.

The Australian drama Summer of the Seventeenth Doll by Ray Lawler was performed in conjunction with the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust while an Australian puppet show The Tintookies was presented for younger audiences.

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Introduction | Torch Relay | Ceremonies | Australia's Success | Highlights
Incidents | Equestrian Events | Festivals & Celebrations | Legacy

Further reading
Olympic Arts Festival 1956, Melbourne, Vic. The arts festival of the Olympic Games, Melbourne: a guide to the exhibitions with introductory commentaries on the arts in Australia
Melbourne, Olympic Civic Committee of Melbourne City Council, 1956.
A 702.0994 OL9A
SLT 702.0994 Ol9A

Contains full catalogue of works shown in the official exhibitions of the Olympic Arts Festival and accompanying introductory articles

Good, Debra. 'The cultural Olympiad'
In Cashman, Richard, and Hughes, Anthonthy, eds. Staging the Olympics: the event and its impact
Sydney, University of New South Wales Press, 1999, pp 159-169
796.48 ST1C
1956: Melbourne, modernity and the XVI Olympiad
Bulleen, Vic., Museum of Modern Art at Heide, 1996
AF 708.99451 H36N

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