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The Federation Parade team was led by Shani Wood (Parade Director) with the Creative management by Eilis O’Beirne (Creative Manager). Between them and the rest of the 15 strong team they had a formidable job.
The Team
The Parade involved 6,500 participants, 30 floats, 23 bands and traversed a 3.6 kilometre route from the city to Moore Park. The parade was broadcast live across the nation on Channel 7 and ABC TV.
ASE editor Trevor Connell interviewed Shani and Eilis in the lead-up to the big event.
Both Shani and Eilis originally started in the industry in theatre. Both have acting credits in their early years. Shani went on to work in production as a Stage Manager and then as Production Manager in theatre and then on to outdoor events, while Eilis went on to wardrobe and puppetry construction before settling on Directing 10 years ago.
Shani has been involved with Australia Day events since 1995. She was also involved in organising the VP Parade in ‘95 and the Royal Easter Show Parade in ‘96
In 1996, Wood was asked by the Premier’s Department to prepare a report and recommendations for the New South Wales Centenary of Federation Celebrations and Commemorations. She was subsequently appointed to head the Parade team.
A Parade Advisory Committee was formed to oversee the parade process. The committee has played a major role in setting and following through on the artistic direction.
When I interviewed Warren Pearson he pointed out that the CoF team is very youthful. Eilis concurs and also points out “the team may be young but we have our elders in the committee looking over our shoulders”
Committee Aims for Parade
The original concept developed by Wood was for the parade to tell the story of Australia in decades. This concept was reworked by the committee for it to follow themes. O’Beirne came to the job (in 1999) with a brief to further develop the parade along the chosen themes. She provided the framework for the structure of the story of the parade, shaping the highpoints and significant moments so that the unfolding story had more meaning and depth. Description of the Themes
The Objectives and Goals of the Parade
According to O’Beirne “it’s a celebration of 100 years of Australia as a nation, so it looks toward the future as well as to the past”. And how is that achieved? “Signposting key moments in Australia’s history and playing with that; having fun with that; being naughty with that; that’s my forte. And finally when that all comes together, presenting a picture of us as a nation – the diversity, tolerance, democracy. And not just the good things, we also talk about social justice. It’s not just a party.”
Wood described the biggest challenge, “to tell the story and to be inclusive.”
Comparisons to 100 years ago
Australia is unique in that our full history as a nation is documented on film. The new medium of “moving pictures” was utilised to record the events of January 1st 1901 and now provides an invaluable resource for today’s event producers. One of the major follow up jobs after this event for Wood and O’Beirne is to document the events for posterity and it was quite interesting to hear them talking about how their material may be used in 100 years time.
The Federation Procession of 1901 involved 10,000 participants (only two women and no aborigines) and was very military in style. Overseas involvement came in the form of troops from other British Commonwealth countries.
According to O’Beirne, “there were some Trade Unions and some agricultural representations but basically it was a military parade”
Why this is not a re-enactment of the original
The 1901 Procession involved 10,000 participants and took four hours to pass a given point. The logistics of staging an event of similar size in 2001 is daunting and probably impractical. The city of Sydney is now much more congested than it was at the start of the 20th century.
Another practical consideration was that in 1901 the Procession set out in the morning in order to assemble at Centennial Park for the Official Ceremony which took place at 1 pm. Sydney now has a major celebration each New Year’s Eve and the debris and infrastructure from that celebration needs to be sorted out before the Parade can assemble.
So a Commemoration Ceremony will be held on the site of the original declaration at 1 pm and the Parade and celebration event will follow.
Journey of a Nation – The Federation Parade is designed to refect the more encompassing nature of the Australia of today and reflects the cultural diversity of our nation.
The development process
In June ’97 Wood started working with the various city authorities, the police, the RTA etc to develop a management plan for the event.
The development process for O’Beirne was to first of all take the themes and put them into an overall storyline, develop a storyline for each theme, then further storylines within those stories. So that each individual set piece could possibly be part of up to 10 other stories.
Next was the appointment of designers for each section. Then to source composers, performers and crew.
Logistics
The “hardware” (floats, pushcarts etc) assembled in Macquarie St from the starting point at the State Library back to the Opera House. While the personnel involved assembled on the grassed and shaded area of the Tarpien precinct between Macquarie St and the Royal Botanic Gardens. With a merge zone at Bridge St.
Journey of a Nation – The Federation Parade and the Centenary Ceremony at Centennial Park are treated as two separate events (with their own production teams) with the Parade due to be completed in Moore Park about an hour before the Celebration commences.
Part of the original plan was to take the State and Territory floats into Centennial Park to form part of the backdrop to the Centennial Celebration, however in the end this proved to be impractical.
When asked about coping with the aftermath of NYE, O’Beirne explained that the team spent last New Year’s Day on the site of the assembly area to see how the area was cleaned and returned to a usable state. In fact the area was ready well within their required timeframe.
The biggest problem would be rain however the team had clear ponchos on standby for participants if the need arose.
Involvement of skilled performers
Performing groups such as Circus Solarius, erth, Oversize Productions, Legs On The Wall, Absurd Entertainment, Izzit, Elmac were involved. As in the Olympic ceremonies these skilled performing groups become group leaders who trained others in the particular skills. This enables these groups to be presented in an expanded format.
Learning from other big events
Peter Wilson (the director of Nature section of the Olympic Opening Ceremony) worked with the parade team as did quite a few of the puppeteers who worked in the Nature section. O’Beirne said “the best thing about that (the Olympics) is that there is a team of seven puppeteers who have been training community groups in large scale puppetry, they worked in the Opening Ceremony and they were already trained, and had experience in working in large crowds doing puppetry.”
The advent of the Olympics and events such as the Millennium NYE events have inspired the designers to push the boundaries and O’Beirne was particularly impressed with some of the very original concepts which have been produced.
Most of the Parade crew had also previously worked on major events and were not fazed by the scale of the event
Australia’s biggest annual parade is the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade, I asked O’Beirne if she drew on their experience. “Most of the staff have worked on Mardi Gras at some point” (including Eilis who worked on the 20th anniversary float designed by Ken Moncrief).
The Parade Advisory Committee includes Bev Lange, former President of Mardi Gras and Ken Moncrief who has created many award winning Mardi Gras floats, while the Production Coordinator, Anthony Russell has worked on Sleaze Ball and the DIVA awards.
The Parade team had worked closely with each Mardi Gras parade over the past few years and have looked at particular strategies including – traffic management, first aid, milk crates, policing.
Commenting on this research O’Beirne said “between New Year’s Eve, Mardi Gras and the Olympics, anything that could have happened, has happened. So we are quite comfortable with what the event is.”
After the event
A policy to “Disappear everything”. Costumes will go to the dance or performing groups. Push Units to institutions, the oversize polymer money to the Reserve Bank. Some agricultural themed floats go to the Royal Agricultural Society (and will probably reappear at the Easter Show), with many more items going to museums around Australia and in particular to Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum.
The State and Territory floats will go on to Melbourne for the celebrations for the Centenary of the first Australian Parliament (6th May)
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