By Tamara Desiatov
and Fernando Whittaker
PERTH — Around 30,000 people attended the Multicultural Festival at Sorrento Quay on Sunday, March 27. A feast of events celebrated the end of a Multicultural Week as well as the Year of the Family.
The event was organised by the Multicultural Arts Centre of WA and funded through state government sponsorship.
The WA Multicultural Performance Award finals were one of the main features of the day, in which local cultural groups presented their performances. In the three days prior to the festival, 21 different groups representing different cultures sang, danced and talked about their cultures. Six of these groups went to the finals.
The criteria for the awards included professionalism, presentation, use of cultural effects, skills, visual impact and showing a festive spirit.
The three groups given awards were the Ukrainian Roztiazhka Cossack Dancers, the Maori group Te Rangatahi Kohanga and the Spanish dance troupe Danza Espanol/Las Gitanas. Judging was a difficult job because all the groups put on great performances.
Entertainment was also provided by top multicultural groups, Los Chasquis, whose Chilean members played music from the Andes region; Sundiata Marimba Band, one of Australia's most innovative and highly regarded World Music acts, playing music from Zimbabwe.
The main act was Footprince from Broome, sharing a cultural blend of Aboriginal, Scandinavian, Malay, Chinese, Indonesian and European heritage performing rock and reggae music.
Passengers on the Transperth special trains to the festival were entertained by a range of multicultural performers such as Nacho Mama's Blues (who had a picture of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata on their double bass), Raggle Taggle Buskers, an Irish group, City Buskers, Ross Bolleter playing the accordion and others.
A special feature of the festival was a belly dancing tent featuring the best performances from the different belly dancing schools in WA.
The function centre at the festival looked like a marketplace, with various cultural groups distributing information and selling arts and crafts, face painting, puppet performances by Passport Theatre Company on cross-cultural relationships, and entertainment throughout the day by a range of a cappella and acoustic musicians and dancers.
The only rather bleak point of the whole day was the presence and speech given by Premier Richard Court during the presentation of the awards.
The Multicultural Arts Centre of WA (MACWA), which organised the day, aims to recognise, foster and promote the development of arts for a multicultural Australia, by encouraging the participation of artists and communities in an environment which respects tradition and encourages cross-cultural dialogue and innovation.
The centre offers workshops, performances, project development, exhibitions and training. For more information, contact MACWA on 328 7898 or drop in to the centre at 24 View Street, North Perth.