Shell National Folkloric Festival
Shell National Folkloric Festival was an annual ethnic folk festival held in Australia. Sponsored by the Shell-Sydney Opera House Foundation 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. The festivals were held in Sydney but were later also held in Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Darwin and Brisbane. In 1975 one thousand performers, representing 30 ethnic groups living in Australia, performed folk music, song and dance at the Opera House, and by 1982 this had grown to 1400 performers  representing 48 different ethnic groups. One of its first producer-directors was Victor Carell (Victor Thomas Cioccarelli), 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. Performing Groups. Between 1973 and 1994 performers representing ethnic groups from Australia, Austria, Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Scotland, Sweden, and Ukraine, performed at the Festival. Groups which performed at the Festival included: Shell National