Peace in the air at Bali art event

DENPASAR, Bali: A performance by noted Balinese painter Made Wianta will cap the Art and Peace Festival, to be held at Padanggalak beach here from Dec. 8 to Dec. 10.

Wianta said a helicopter would fly a 2,000-meter-long white cloth bearing a peace message written in several languages from Klating beach in Tabanan to Padanggalak, about five kilometers east of here.

The banner will be paraded in a dance with about 2,000 local performers. Wianta said the number of dancers represented the year 2000.

Among the major events in the festival are poetry reading, a seminar, a drawing contest and the Agni Hotra ceremony, a Hindu purification ritual.

"We want to organize an event in which the arts community is free to voice its dreams about a peaceful world," Wianta said. (39/edt)