Moon Lanterns Light Up OzAsia Festival's Middle Week

SA has many reasons to celebrate this weekend, with ever-popular cultural and family event, and OzAsia Festival staple, the 2017 Moon Lantern Festival, taking place in Elder Park on Sunday 1 October. The giant 40-person-long Hong Kong dragon will lead a stunning parade of 40 large handmade lanterns, and numerous smaller hand-held lanterns, after the sun goes down and conclude with a spectacular display of fireworks over the River Torrens.

Gates open at 5pm, and on arrival attendees can immediately get into the spirit by following a trail of 20 exquisite lanterns placed throughout Elder Park. Free workshops, activities, demonstrations and roving cultural performances will include Cirkidz, Bollywood and lion dancing, Kung Fu, Taekwondo and Tai Chi, El Musafeer Indonesian puppets, henna tattoos and calligraphy.

The lantern parade involves over 300 primary school children and over 600 people from community groups and organizations, and will take place set to live music by Singapore experimental music band, SA (?). On the stage, SBS PopAsia's Andy Trieu will be master of ceremonies for a variety of free performances.

Also open from 5pm will be many of Adelaide's iconic food trucks including Strawberries Galore, Green Elephant Coffee, Tara, Let's Eat! Filipino Street Food, TMR Tammy's Meat Rolls, The Satay Hut, Beyond India, The Creperie Cart and Popsicool.

For the first time, a parade will depart from Adelaide's Chinatown entrance on Gouger and Moonta Streets, with 60 participants with handheld lanterns weaving their way through Adelaide's street and laneway footpaths towards Elder Park from 5:45pm.

Access to the venue will be restricted once capacity is reached so patrons are encouraged to get there early to ensure their special spot in the middle of all this free entertainment.

In the event Moon Lantern Festival needs to be cancelled due to inclement weather please check the website www.ozasiafestival.com.au/events/moon-lantern-festival/ and Facebook @OzAsiaFestival.

Additional highlights of the OzAsia Festival during the second week include sassy hip hop crew Hot Brown Honey; Singaporean theatre company W!ld Rice's 100-year epic Hotel (Parts 1 and 2); Aussie rock favourites Regurgitator re-interpreting classic album The Velvet Underground & Nico, together with China's Mindy Meng Wang and German-Australian musician Seja; and 150 Australian and Singaporean delegates gathering at the Adelaide Festival Centre for the Australia-Singapore Cultural Leaders' Forum.

The Australian Art Orchestra will also perform the world premieres of three musical pieces by composers from four parts of the world in Meeting Points: one spellbinding event embracing the past, present and future. Cocoon, by Mindy Meng Wang, extensively showcases the guzheng, a Chinese stringed instrument, and traces key events in Wang's own upbringing including time spent in China, London and Australia, where she continues to live. Seoul meets Arnhem Land in Seoul Meets Arnhem Land: Ecstatic Voice, composed by South Korea's Bae Il Dong and Arnhem Land's Daniel Wilfred, drawing upon natural musical elements from both cultures, including South Korean p'ansori (in which singers hone their technique by singing into waterfalls) and Yolungu manikay (the traditional passing on of songs that helped shape and name the lands throughout generations). Japan's Keiichiro Shibuya continues to push boundaries with new work Scary Beauty being written for and performed live by Skeleton, a sophisticated new android with a neural network that replicates the human brain.

Seoul Meets Arnhem Land: Ecstatic Voice is proudly supported by the Australian Government through the Australia-Korea Foundation (AKF) of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Mr Peter Coleman, AKF Chair, says:

''The Australia-Korea Foundation is pleased to be a long-term supporter of the OzAsia Festival's Korea focused program. Festival goers this year are in for a special treat with a performance bringing together the traditions of P'ansori from Korea with Indigenous music from Arnhem Land.'

2017 OzAsia Festival is supported by the Government of South Australia, Arts South Australia and Brand South Australia.

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