Alice Springs is having Desert Festival the next 10 days or so. It all started with a parade, and what a fun parade it was! Starting with youn
g drummers who were SO tight and just cracker-jack on their beautiful instruments, followed by giant desert insects and arachnids, all made by the local school kids with volunteer artists.
The whole troupe moved on to the ANZAC oval - a park near the top of downtown. There was a stage set up and most of the parade groups performed into the evening.
The Maoris' performance was chilling. We've since learned Maoris are the native Polynesians of New Zealand. The boys wore black or bead loin cloths and held long sticks. Their faces and bodies were painted. An adult led them in a stomping, threatening, shouting chant which made me think, "A hundred years ago, coming on this group in the jungle...we'd all be dead. I'm glad we're all friends now...W-W-We are, right?"
I couldn't get a good photo of it, but here's a similar video from You Tube.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-lrE2JcO44&feature=related
and here it is done by gingerbread men http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cTJla0i_Kw
I now know it's called a Haka and is understandably very useful at rugby games.
The girls and young women were in purple batik sarongs and did an equally fascinating, graceful hand-gesture dance. A little blonde girl next to us started miming along with them as easily as if she were doing Itsy-bitsy Spider. Think they learn it in pre-school?
There was a Kids' Day at the same park Sunday. Too hot and too little shade for these Yanks.
Thomas was whiney and I was intolerant. We cut it short and walked over to Target - a small, messy version of a US one. I think I figured it out - with the seasons opposite here, they send all the last season's stuff over and charge full price again. Ok, double full price. Did I mention I was hot?
Enjoying a couple cold drinks in the foodcourt, an Aboriginal woman came up to me with a traditional dot painting. It had happened a couple times before when we were in a cafe or walking Todd Mall and I always shook my head, more out of apprehension than anything. This time, I looked and I actually liked the one painting. She named her price which got lower when I said I wanted to think about it, then climbed higher by 15 bucks as we talked, but knowing I just dropped 10 bucks on 2 slushies, I let it happen.
They're each about 14" square, or whatever that is in metric. I really like the one with the honey ants and witchety grubs going to the billabong under the 2 women, their digging sticks and coolamon. She said she'd sign it, but I guess that meant I needed to give her a pencil. To be perfectly ignorant, I doubt I'd recognize her again.
What a short, strange trip it's been.
g drummers who were SO tight and just cracker-jack on their beautiful instruments, followed by giant desert insects and arachnids, all made by the local school kids with volunteer artists.
The whole troupe moved on to the ANZAC oval - a park near the top of downtown. There was a stage set up and most of the parade groups performed into the evening.
The Maoris' performance was chilling. We've since learned Maoris are the native Polynesians of New Zealand. The boys wore black or bead loin cloths and held long sticks. Their faces and bodies were painted. An adult led them in a stomping, threatening, shouting chant which made me think, "A hundred years ago, coming on this group in the jungle...we'd all be dead. I'm glad we're all friends now...W-W-We are, right?"
I couldn't get a good photo of it, but here's a similar video from You Tube.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-lrE2JcO44&feature=related
and here it is done by gingerbread men http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cTJla0i_Kw
I now know it's called a Haka and is understandably very useful at rugby games.
The girls and young women were in purple batik sarongs and did an equally fascinating, graceful hand-gesture dance. A little blonde girl next to us started miming along with them as easily as if she were doing Itsy-bitsy Spider. Think they learn it in pre-school?
There was a Kids' Day at the same park Sunday. Too hot and too little shade for these Yanks.
Thomas was whiney and I was intolerant. We cut it short and walked over to Target - a small, messy version of a US one. I think I figured it out - with the seasons opposite here, they send all the last season's stuff over and charge full price again. Ok, double full price. Did I mention I was hot?
Enjoying a couple cold drinks in the foodcourt, an Aboriginal woman came up to me with a traditional dot painting. It had happened a couple times before when we were in a cafe or walking Todd Mall and I always shook my head, more out of apprehension than anything. This time, I looked and I actually liked the one painting. She named her price which got lower when I said I wanted to think about it, then climbed higher by 15 bucks as we talked, but knowing I just dropped 10 bucks on 2 slushies, I let it happen.
They're each about 14" square, or whatever that is in metric. I really like the one with the honey ants and witchety grubs going to the billabong under the 2 women, their digging sticks and coolamon. She said she'd sign it, but I guess that meant I needed to give her a pencil. To be perfectly ignorant, I doubt I'd recognize her again.What a short, strange trip it's been.
Looks like a great parade. Love the insect/arachnids! The Maori culture has always been fascinating to me. Have you seen "Once Were Warriors", a sometimes hard to watch movie about the problems a Maori family encounters in modern culture, not helped by the violent Dad? It won all kinds of awards when it was released in the mid-1990's sometime. It's one movie I think back to time and time again. Sounds like you're getting the Aussie lingo down well. When I come for a visit, we'll have to sing "Waltzing Matilda" under the stars (yes, I know the song by heart - don't ask me why!). Keep the blog postings coming, my friend.
ReplyDeleteOh! Love the dot paintings. My favorite is the witchety grub/honey ant one, too. Don't you just love saying "witchety grub"?
ReplyDeleteColors, colors, colors - seems to be a theme!
ReplyDeleteI'm late to this party (been out of town) but SO SO SO happy to see what's going on. Please email heat and dry - it is soggy here today.