The Nimbin Aquarius Festival caravan – with bells and whistles and rainbow flags – moved to the Channon Craft Market on Sunday to celebrate the Aquarius 50th anniversary and Mother’s Day with passion, grace and random acts of beauty and kindness, laced with hugs and kisses and companionship that the inclement weather failed to dampen.
Punters who braved the rain were treated to a smorgasbord of music, performance and dance: from the ancient Indian ragas of Armando’s bansuri and Rodney’s tabla, to Fantuzzi’s Rainbow songs; from the twisted Nimbin pirate-folk of K’Flunk, to the contemporary funk-rap of Moana and Leonards Slippers; from the rich orchestral sound of Orkz Liz, to the Bhangra dance moves of the Bollywood Sisters.
In between, high wire artist Philippe Petit – who was at the Nimbin Aquarius Festival of 1973 – juggled and walked a slack line and mimed his way to our hearts; Nimbin songsters Bikko and Doug danced us to the end of love; while Mic Conway took the piss out of mankind’s civilisational pretensions in typical Aussie fashion, by calling out a race to get to the finish line of nuclear Armageddon, with the cockroaches clear winners.
The standout performance for this reporter was the differently abled percussion group Out of Order, who juggled complex rhythms – including a rendering of the Fibonacci sequence of 33 – with breath-taking panache.
A feature of the day’s celebration was environmental and peace activist Benny Zable, who took punters on a merry dance of the Channon oval with a massive sign that read: May the longtime sun shine upon you, all love surround you, and the pure light within you, guide your way on. It was the words of the Aquarian anthem sung one misty morning in Nimbin in 1973 come to life. People linked hands and formed a Living Peace Mandala in front of the Rainbow Chai Tent.
