The Santos lantern led the parade.
Performer at the Moon Lantern Festival.
The fifth annual OzAsia Festival, partnered by Santos, drew record crowds this year with 35,000 attendances over two weeks, a 10% increase on 2010.
Santos has been the major festival partner of OzAsia since 2008, a natural fit as an Australian company with a presence in six Asia-Pacific countries.
OzAsia is a celebration of food, film, dance, music, drama and art from right across Asia, and serves to build the cultural understanding between Australia and its regional neighbours.
>> Watch the 2011 OzAsia Festival video.
The 2011 program featured 446 artists from Japan, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Tibet, Thailand, Vietnam, and the best from Australia. This included six world premieres, nine Australian premieres, seven South Australian premieres and 14 Adelaide exclusives. OzAsia also brought together top designers in food, furniture and fashion in FEAST by design.
This year, new partnerships were forged on the visual arts front with Samstag Museum of Art, Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia (CACSA) and The Art Gallery that, along with the Nuido World Embroidery Exhibition at the Adelaide Festival Centre’s Artspace, saw 24,909 patrons visit those exhibitions. This resulted in a grand total of over 60,000 people engaged with the 2011 OzAsia Festival.
Moon Lantern Festival
The festival’s favourite community gathering, the Moon Lantern Festival, enjoyed record attendances.
About 20,000 people converged on Adelaide’s Elder Park to enjoy the free performances, eat moon cakes, and watch the parade of 1,200 school children and community group members with home-made lanterns to celebrate and admire the beauty of the full moon.
This twilight event is an occasion to admire the beauty of the full moon on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. Traditionally known as the mid-autumn festival, this local event is a popular celebration of abundance and togetherness, with communities and schools involved in the preparation of their own lanterns as well as the parade. In addition to the parade, the night entailed performances, food and market stalls, cooking and martial arts demonstrations, workshops and fireworks.
More than 40 Santos employees and their children joined the parade with their hand-made lanterns.
Moon lantern workshop and Indonesian dance and music workshop
As part of Santos’ support of OzAsia, employees and their children had the opportunity to take part in private workshops to make moon lanterns and learn Indonesian dance and music.
More than 40 Santos employees and their families attended the moon lantern workshop, great for children and adults alike, providing the chance to enhance creative skills under expert tutelage. The lanterns were then paraded at the Moon Lantern Festival.
The Indonesian Dance and Music Workshop was held the following weekend with more than 30 Santos employees and their families attending. The workshops were run by Indonesian dancer Ade Suharto and Indonesian musician and teacher Dodi Darmadi. Ade introduced two vibrant regional dances from Indonesia, while Dodi showcased his exciting Sundanese drumming, music and martial arts skills.
AbaF award
Each year, the Australia Business Arts Foundation (AbaF) honours the best relationship between the private sector and the arts through the prestigious Australia Business Arts Foundation Awards.
Santos and the Adelaide Festival Centre won the AbaF Partnering Award for the 2011 OzAsia Festival. This is the third consecutive year Santos has won an award from AbaF.
Filed under:
Arts/culture, South Australia