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Review by Liz Rivers
Let’s face it. Every major public event held in Australia over the next few years will inevitably be compared to the success, in event management terms, of the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies.
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And most will not stand up to the comparison. How could they without similar budgets and resources? But the Centennial Celebration is one event that does.
With a budget that looked starved next to the money spent on the Olympics (the entire budget was about one-fifth of that spent on the lighting for the Olympics opening ceremony), the Centennial Celebration pushed multi-media technology, national pride and artistic endeavour to a new frontier.
However there are obvious differences that make comparison to either of the Olympic ceremonies difficult – for a start the Centennial Celebration was created as a civic event to embrace community spirit.
Creative Director Andrew Walsh explained that this one in a 100-year celebration was not intended to be a “concert-style” event like the Olympic ceremonies. Rather, it had parallels to a theatre performance during which a story unfolded through five mini-shows seamlessly linked.
It was a delightful mix of nostalgia, prophecy, philosophy, creativity and equality. It showed a crystal-clear reflection of a nation that has every reason to be proud of itself.
A 100-voice national children’s choir, Gondwana Voices, was assembled especially for the occasion. They sang new arrangements, accompanied at times by the outstanding Sydney Philharmonic Choirs.
Opera singer Deborah Cheetham’s contributions, both verbal and sung, added an essential Koori flavour, and challenged the Australia-wide audience to again consider the pain and achievements of our Stolen Generation.
In fact, the multi-cultural patchwork of Australia was reinforced when six Australians - Deborah Cheetham, author Thomas Keneally, media star Annette Shun Wah, businesswoman Stella Axarlis, 10-year-old Pradeepan Kandiah and legal giant Marcus Einfield, each told their personal story. It was a moving 25 minutes during which members of the audience wept tears, laughed and clapped loudly.
Einfield shared his family’s humanitarian outlook – such as helping Jews less fortunate than his family begin a new life in Australia after escaping the horrors of the Holocaust. “Australia took more Holocaust refugees per capita than any other country,” he said, explaining that such a benevolent character was one of the things he loved so much about our country.
Shun Wah’s grandfather, an early Chinese immigrant to Australia, was affected by the White Australia Policy - a slap in the face, ensuring that Shun Wah’s family, along with tens of thousands other Chinese who stayed to help build our nation, were seen as illegal immigrants. “One hundred and thirty years after my grandfather came to this land I wonder why there are times when I must still legitimize the fact that I am Australian. As we celebrate Federation, I rejoice that all of us – the citizens of a nation of many origins and many struggles – celebrate together,” she said.
Keneally, a great storyteller, entertained the audience. They laughed. They pondered. They shook their heads in disbelief at some of the errors of our nation’s pioneers. “Now there is no-one left from my father’s childhood family, who brought their opinions, irreverence and valour to Australia, and came to drink from the common bowl of Australia-hood.”
Of Greek origin, Axarlis spoke with unparalleled emotion. “I’m passionately Australian. But the way I gesticulate, the way I emote, shows that while I think as an Anglo Celtic, my heart still beats in Greek tempo”, she said. Like Cheetham, she has gained international praise for her operatic performances. However, she left the music world to meet the challenge of turning a struggling company in the automotive industry into a success story. With typical Hellenic enthusiasm, her speech ended with outstretched arms and the proclamation “Australia - I love you”.
Cheetham talked about her parents – white and black, with pride. “My own journey has always been to gain acceptance and find a path from White Baptist ABBA fan to gay Koori opera singer with the hope that I might reconcile the different layers of my life. Perhaps the progress I’ve enjoyed gives us a glimpse of the success we can taste as a nation if we strive together for reconciliation,” she said.
Kandiah was born in Sri Lanka. His parents came to Australia to escape the civil unrest. His proclamation, which concluded the Journey of a Nation stories, was a reminder of the oath thousands of people from across the world take each year when they embrace Australian citizenship. “As an Australian citizen, I affirm my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I uphold and obey.” Touché!
These stories were told as part of the third segment of five. Each segment had its own character, told through dance, song, multimedia projection, narration or a combination of all. Each segment confirmed that pride has its place in molding the future.
Walsh, the creative genius behind the Centennial Celebration event, must have known this fact as well, because he took us on a splendid journey showing how we evolved from humble, and sometimes cruel, beginnings to arrive in the 21st century as a sophisticated nation.
The dance, song and narrated “story” was supported with hundreds of photographs and news-reel clips projected onto the huge 20-metre by 10-metre screen which doubled as the stage roof.
The lighting, set to either complement or contrast the colours worn by performers, was spectacular. The sound was crisp and clear. The six-tier stage with its fire-red wings extended the performance. The soloists exited the stage by moving forward towards the audience in deliberate choreography that reinforced that we are a democratic nation proud of our egalitarian philosophies. The message was clearly: everyone is equal – everyone is on the same level.
If there has to be criticism then let it be very minor. The 10-minute break between the gift-giving ceremony at 7.45 pm and the start of the Centennial Celebration at 8.00 pm left an unnecessary gap.
That concludes the criticism.
It was refreshing and re-assuring to see a truly unique, one-in-a-century theatre-style public event – without Waltzing Matilda… or fireworks!
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