Global Carnival 07

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SPECIAL PROGRAM EVENTS
 

Turning the Wheel

monk

boat

Matt Hill

'Turning the Wheel'
This very special festival event has been created to pay tribute to the lives and contribution of 2 men central to the formation and development of the Global Carnival: Johnny Richards was one of the founding members of the festival and our production manager and Uncle Neville Buchanan, a Gumbaynggirr Elder who conceived the ‘Yarn up’ area and opened the Carnival from the very beginning.  This event will express the passage and passing of time and the impermanent nature and cyclic quality of life – the ‘turning of the wheel’.  Whilst prompted and built around the loss of these two great festival figureheads, the symbolism within the event resonates for all of us. We are all subject to change and can all relate to it in our everyday lives.

The 2007 festival marks a new start in another cycle of the festival. ‘Turning the Wheel’ delivers an opportunity all of us to ceremoniously acknowledge, honour and share our losses of the past but celebrate our new beginnings. Beautiful large scale iconic sculptures and arched gateways, produced and designed within the Bellingen community, have been created as part of a workshop program funded by Festivals Australia and run by Kalang Design studios and Light ‘n’ Up of Lismore.  We chose the 4 elements; earth, air, fire and water as the theme for the gates to represent the universal conditions for life that are common to all of us regardless of caste or creed. The iconic sculptures and hand held lanterns created by the children during the festival will be part of a choreographed candlelit procession weaving its way thru the arched gateways as a metaphor for life moving thru the elements on it’s journey from birth to death – the endless cycle of not being,  becoming and dissolution.  The procession will be accompanied by Kristian Benton on Didgeridoo and will end with a fire picture depicting the resolution of one cycle and the arising of another. Local aboriginal dance group ‘Jumbaal Dreamin' will take up the momentum and this will be followed by a specially learned song presented by The Café of the Gates of Salvation.  The event will climax with the Gyuto Monks of Tibet who are in Australia on their ‘Precious Human Life’ tour.

Kristian Benton is a descendant of the Ngemba tribe of Brewarrina and has been working for the past ten years in raising Aboriginal cultural awareness and sharing his knowledge of the didgeridoo.  He has just finished recording his latest album, ‘Spirit Alive’ and will accompany local aboriginal dance troupe, ‘Jumbaal dreamin’.

Kalang Design Studios expertise ranges from structural design requiring building and engineering skills to the creation and construction of event décor and installations.  During the past 5 years they have taught art groups as well as working within the community to develop sculptures and installations suitable for major events and festivals.

For the past 10 yrs, Light ‘n’ Up have operated as community artists in design and construction of lightweight  illuminated sculptures, fire art, props, floats, stage sets, shadow theatre and installations They have well established skills in community consultation, artist residencies and networking and the management of large scale events and processions. Light ‘n’ Up will also be conducting their usual lantern making workshops with the children over the festival weekend.

Body percussion workshops will be taught by Matt Hill to provide the sound and meter for the procession to move by. Matt is a multi-instrumentalist who conducts workshops in making rhythms and music from one’s own body. ‘Body Beats’ is a ‘hands on’ journey, showing students how to make music wherever they are using their very own instrument-themselves. Since graduating from QUT (BA Drama), Matt has worked with Outback Education and the Murri school igniting children’s imagination and music skills. He has been the musical director for Flying Fruit Fly Circus (2001), closing ceremony CRU 2003 Gathering the Wisdom - Change in the Lives of People with Disabilities, Sydney Olympic Festival, Culture Express Pacific performance group and the Fire Event (Woodford Folk Festival)

Enough candles have been purchased so the entire festival audience has the opportunity, if they wish, to participate in this ceremony and we are encouraging everyone to bring and wear something white if they can.

festival
The Australian Government is proud to be associated with the Bellingen Global Carnival. “Turning the Wheel’ was made possible by Festivals Australia, an Australian Government program which supports cultural activity at regional and community festivals. Through this program, festivals across Australia are able to present quality cultural events, providing greater access for more Australians to a wider range of cultural activity
ya lingo
 YA LINGO! 
Presented by UBERLINGUA (see Globezone write-ups)  A multi-lingual MC game show cipher.
Eight of Australia's best MCs and vocalists with non-English backgrounds rap in their mother tongue... competition style... woven within the carnival program.  One rule: no English allowed! A dice determined the order of appearance, selector bP drops the beats, an interpreter converts what their verses into a common lingo for crowd and competitor. Heats determine the pecking order with the audience deciding the winner each time... a final two emerge and take each other on in the decider...
Spanish! Swiss German! Japanese! Shona! Turkish! Singhalese! Gumbaynggirr amongst others...
It's trans-lingual competition at it's extremes... Ya Lingo!
AERIAL ARENA and CIRCUS
Cirquel

Cirquel w Captain Quirk
Simon Walsh is a world class juggler, musician, acclaimed circus teacher, gifted artist and designer. Simon has performed all around Australia and New Zealand, both solo and with a number of circuses - including Suitcase Circus, Circus Monoxide and Toybox Circus. In his role as a circus teacher he has taught at The Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts for the last five years, and has worked with a host of primary and high schools.

The “Captain Quirk Show” is an action-packed juggling show, set to a specially composed funky/quirky soundtrack. The zany Captain will amaze with his highly technical routine, involving 7 balls, 5 clubs, hat manipulations, and a unique finale involving a bowling ball, a blade, a frying pan helmet and an egg!

lucky loulou

lucky loulou

Lucky Loulou
Lou first wooed the crowds dancing in a cage at London’s infamous Fridge nightclub, going on to embrace the physical and emotional challenges of circus life. She ran away with (and sometimes from) various circus, theatres and dance companies throughout Europe, performing at such venues as London’s Circus Space, The Ministry of Sound and the Glastonbury Festival.

Among her personal achievements Lucky Lou Lou bravely lists: jumping out of a cake and onto a trapeze, creating a totally edible show; performing corde lisse (suspended rope tricks) in several odd locations, including in the stairwell of an abattoir in Switzerland; from the end of a crane in Berlin as the riot police marched in; and again from a crane in a flame retardant suit, amongst exploding fireworks in Manchester. She’s also clamoured artistically over scaffolding at a travel agents conference in Vienna; fell out of a ceiling on a bungee cord dressed as an angel; and bounced around a circus ring dressed as a hydrogen atom.

Since relocating to Australia ten years ago, Lou has performed her corde lisse piece to the dulcet tones of Nick Cave’s 'Into My Arms' at the Livid Festival and achieved a lifelong dream by playing air guitar on stage with Machine Gun Fellatio at the Big Day Out.
Zip Circus
zip circus
zip circus

Zip Circus
High flying trapeze artists Ross Pelmore and Juliana Kyung Hwa An are Zip Circus, and their breathtaking aerial skills are second to none. Ross was born in Byron Bay, raised in Mullumbimby and went to work at the flying trapeze school at the Byron Bay Beach Resort. Joining Club Med he spent seven years working in their resorts all over the world as an instructor and manager of Circus and Flying Trapeze. In 2003, Ross returned to Mullumbimby where he decided to build own flying trapeze in order to establish a school, named Zip Circus.

Juliana was born and raised in Seoul, Republic of Korea. She started circus during her time in Club Med. Juliana performs and instructs Flying Trapeze and various of Aerial Acts such as Double Trapeze, Static Trapeze , Spanish Web and Aerial Tissue. She came to Australia in 2003 and established the Zip Circus Flying Trapeze School with Ross.

Zip Circus will be performing throughout the Global Carnival, as well as giving audience members the chance to experience the joy of the flying trapeze themselves. (A nominal fee applies for public participation.)

Circus Amorphus

circus amorphus
Circus Amorphus
A fantastic local group of performers who love to bring their special blend of circus magic to all kinds of events and to all ages, Circus Amorphus specialises in all manner of twirling, balancing and sky-high stilt-walking characters. Their Fluro Show features twirling flags, pois and spectacular hula hoop performances.  With amazing circus skills and vivid costumes they create UV visual extravagances. The Amorphus Aerial Show features performers on silks (tissu) creating beautiful pictures as they drop, roll and wrap their way through stunning displays and duo trapeze acts of strength and grace. And with their funky piece of Dance Acrobatics, Circus Amorphus lift and leap their way into your imagination.
circus amorphus

dharma

dharma

The DHARMA Tent
This year’s festival makes reference in a variety of ways to profound and yet simple and eloquently expressed Buddhist views and philosophies on life.  Not least of these ways will be the Dharma Tent which you will find in the same location as the Gyuto Monks from Tibet.  The Dharma tent will house activities presented by the Gyuto monks and the Australian Insight organisation and will include early morning meditation and  teachings of the Dharma.

Insight Meditation and Dharma teachings, known as Vipassana in the Buddhist Tradition, have a single purpose. They point to a life of freedom and liberation and allow us to see the habitual patterns of mind that create confusion, anxiety and pain in our lives.  Utilizing the practices of meditation, mindfulness and inquiry we are able to see clearly into the nature of reality and live an awakened life.

Radha Nicholson is a member of the Australian Insight Teachers’ Circle and a guiding teacher for Bay Insight in Byron Bay.. She teaches meditation retreats in Australia and India and regularly teaches in Sarnath, India, at the annual Dharma Gathering. Radha is a Registered Psychologist and member of the Australian Psychological Society with a private practice in Bangalow, in Northern NSW. At the festival Radha will give talks on meditation practice and lead inquiry in question and answer sessions

Sexton Bourke is also a member of the Australia Insight Teachers’ Circle and guiding teacher at Tallowwood Sangha Bellingen and will lead early morning meditation.
 

ZENERGETICS – MORNING WAKE UP! 7.00am – 9am,  10am – 12noon.
Join Gary Norfolk, the creator of Zenergetics. Wake up your body, mind, and senses. Connect and nurture yourself and others as you exercise. Practice slow Tibet Yoga, Relaxation Movements, Breath, Sound, Dance, Deep Rest and Meditation.
Film Fest

GLOBAL FILM FEST

UBERLINGUA presents “Rogue State”,  a trans-cultural, socially switched-on moving image mini-fest of documentaries by some of the world’s most conscious musicians and pro-active film makers, alongside multi-lingual music clips from the world’s grass roots to the street, plus a bit of international cheese for of random fun… Rogue State
BINNAH will present’ The Gathering – Return of The Whaledreamers’ a documentary about Whales, Aboriginals and World Peace.
jen

THE FORUM
Grassroots in the rubble: from hierarchy to panarchy
At last, the world is waking up to the global crisis.  Yet endemic, hierarchical bureaucracies continue to blinker us and many decision-makers to the necessary creative responses already emerging in grassroots networks. 
At this year’s Forum we’ll be exploring alternative structures to hierarchy, including ‘panarchy’ – a term that ecologist Buzz Hollings uses to describe universally occurring systems whose resilience is based on cycles of growth, breakdown and renewal.   The renewal phase in such systems is characterized by greater openness to new connections and by the emergence of diverse, experimental structures.
In the recent book ‘Upside of Down’, Thomas Homer-Dixon says that in the confusing aftermath of breakdown ‘traditional centralized and top-down approaches aren’t nimble enough, and they stifle creativity’.  But what are the alternatives?
The Forum will look closely at how decentralized, networked structures actually work  - and what the rhizome world of grassroots networks might have to offer a civilization in crisis. 
We aim to tap into the collective wisdom of forum participants, many of whom have had an instinctive understanding and response to the crisis we now face when it started to emerge in the 1970s.  There are many people who have had some first-hand experience in steering a course between command-and-control hierarchy and lowest-common-denominator commune.  The forum format will draw on the ‘Work that Reconnects’ approach pioneered by eco-activist Joanna Macy.

‘The Work That Reconnects’ is a pioneering form of group work that began in the 1970s. It demonstrates our interconnectedness in the web of life and our authority to take action on its behalf. It has helped many thousands around the globe find insight, solidarity, and courage to act, despite rapidly worsening conditions.’
Joanna Macy - www.joannamacy.net

‘The aspect of Panarchy that is most novel and significant concerns the phase when resisting institutions start to break down or transform, releasing the chance for a renewed system to emerge. At that moment, novelty that had been simmering in the background can emerge and be debated. And new associations begin to develop among previously separate innovations. The big influence comes from discoveries that, at that time, emerge from people’s local experiments at small scales, discoveries that can emerge at times of big change, to trigger bigger changes at large scales. That process highlights the keys for the future.’
Buzz Hollings - http://www.resalliance.org/593.php

‘Conventional economics is the dominant intellectual rationalization of today’s world order.  Breakdown will, all at once, discredit this rationalization and create intellectual space for new ideas to flourish.  But this space will be brutally competitive.  We can boost the chances that humane alternatives will thrive by working them out in detail and disseminating them as widely as possible beforehand.’
Thomas Homer-Dixon - http://www.theupsideofdown.com/
 

MOSAIC WORKSHOPS
Guy Crosley of HEADLAND Artworks is running his usual community ceramic mosaic making workshops over the two days of the Carnival. The idea is to get he festival community to participate and then install the finished mosaic within the  Showgrounds as a permanent piece of public art . As an experienced arts worker, Guy has conducted numerous highly successful workshops which have resulted in beautiful public artworks at Nambucca, Dorrigo, Scott's Head, Thora, Mylestom and other places. In Guy’s good fun, participatory workshop environment you will make and create amazing art that will be exciting and fit the carnival theme.
   
  ...more special events will be announced soon
 


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