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Bush Dance Sunday 14 March 2010
Stirk Park Kalamunda 4pm to 7pm


Community Meeting Tuesday 2 March 2010
Town Square Community Hall (opp. Post Office)
Barber Street Kalamunda 7pm to 9pm

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2009 Festival report

2009 Zig Zag Festival

Was held on
Sunday 25 October 2009


It was our 25th Festival ... and it was on the 25th...
It certainly was special!


Festival Tent table - programmes, sun block, and a great atmosphere Charlotte squeals with delight as she sees the size of the bubble her friend made at the 25th Annual Zig Zag Festival Convict - X on the Youth Stage - Brilliant band must see!
Festival Tent desk;   Charlotte squeals with delight,   Convict-X on the youth stage
Junk music workshops in the Childrens area Zig Zag Festival Parade - Walliston Primary School Float Venturer's Caterplosion Float - one segment for every year
Children's area music with Junkadelic,     Walliston Primary School Float;    Venturer's Caterplosion  float
composite photo of the float in stirk park in front of the Sound shell stage
the end of the parade... and the tail of the float


2009 Festival Photos by Gillian Berry http://dragancaor.net and Peter James http://fotoboy.com.au


The 2009 Kalamunda Zig Zag Festival was
held on Sunday 25 October.  It was our 25th festival on the 25th so it was pretty special.  2009 Festival Poster

The Festival in Stirk Park ran from 11:00am till 8:00pm, and the street parade in Haynes Street from 6 pm to 6:30
2009 Festival Programme

Sunday 25th October 2009 began with a bit of the wind left over from the previous day, but by 11 am when the Festival started, it was calm, warm and sunny.  You would have to say it was an ideal day, not uncomfortably hot, just balmy all day.  The Stalls were all pitched by 10:45 and the chilren's activities set up too.  The welcome to country was followed by our own Madjitil Moorna Choir.

The Zig Zag Festival is an annual community-based celebration that, this year, celebrated 25 years building and nurturing scores of creative partnerships and collaborations in the local community.  The collaborations celebrated the rich cultural life in the Hills – the musicians, visual artists, dancers and creative community artisans in all areas of the arts.  Schools, community groups, local artists, and community service groups including the Kalamunda SES  and Kanyana wildlife sanctuary all contributed to the excitement and diversity of Festval Day.


Zig Zag Community Arts held a number of pre-festival workshops and activities in the run-up to the festival day, these included:

  • The Float Building Workshops with the Kalamunda Venture Scouts was an amazing mixture of puppet making and construction. Ken Allen and the Funk Factory teamed up with the Venture Scouts and the community to build what may be our lonest parade puppet (although research suggests the dragon built in the late 90s might actually have been longer if you added up all the segments built by different schools). This collaboration brought artists to the community for workshops to join in the festival parade.  The Float was amazing, not just big, each of the 25 segments had a picture or a poster from a past festival on each side.  Once it arrived in the park you could hardly see all of it at once! 
Parade floats arrive infromt of the Festival  Sound Shell Stage
at the end of the parade, the Caterplosion float arrives in front of the Sound Shell Stage
  • Kalamunda Youth Band Nights ran during the April, July and October school holidays.  Local young musicians take over the Kalamunda Town Square Community Hall (in Barber Street opposite the Post Office) from 6pm.  Acts from these band nights performed  at the Festival on the Youth Stage in Stirk Park.  What's more, several of the bands from Youth Band Night have gone on to feature in mainstream gigs around Perth in recent weeks.  Well done to all!

  • Large crowd watches the main stage
    The Madjitil Moorna Choir were the opening act at the festival.  Their harmonies and messages were stong this year, with all three directors on hand to lead and support what is now a large choir.



The choir continues to develop, and holds its rehearsals Monday Evenings every week in Forestfield.  The choir certainly has achieved great things this year, with a feature length documentary on the Halls Creek Project published by acclaimed young Kalamunda Cinematographer Mat deKoning.
 






  • Zig Zag Music nights Folk sessions have continued to get the closet musicians among us back into actually playing the music.  Weekly workshops that teach and nurture music making skills.  The workshops started on Wednesday evenings in 2008, and have attracted between 10 and 16 musicians every week.  A mix of folk, klezmer and traditional acoustic music brought out skills long dormant.  Members of the group performed on Festival day on the CheckerBoard Stage and got great applause.  Catch a short video of them on the  Black Chook Chutney page.  

  • The Artz in the Park metalwork and mural looked great around the Checkerboard Stage on Festival Day.  People asked "who did this?" and we said - "just a few kids from Kalamunda and around".  Check out the details and pictures on the Artz in the Park page.  (Looking at how many kids queued up to play the giant chess set in the Children's area on Festival day, maybe we need to tell people how they can borrow the big chess set from the Library?)


The Zig Zag Festival is still known as one of the few remaining locally-based community arts festivals.  Local crafts, local entertainment, community workshops, and schools projects all contribute to the day of celebration.  As well as the schools involved in the Parade, the Kalamunda Senior High School GATE program students paraded their wearable art costumes again this year. 

The Hills Area around the Shire of Kalamunda has always had a real village culture, and a sense of community you can sense even as a visitor.  Stimulating the creativity of a community like this to do exciting and new things can produce amazing results, this year we had what was arguably the largest crowd ever for the festival, hopefully it has the power to open up new collaborations that will foster lasting creativity.

Retrospective exhibition, 25 years of past festivals25 years was a great reason to have a retrospective exhibition.  Photo albums were raided and produced an tremenous display of community creativity and action.   As well as photographs there were posters and a huge  Hooked on Hessian tapestry created on Festival day in 2005. 
 
There was a steady stream of visitors through the exhibition thoughout the day.


FREE activities on festival day

The kids activity areas and the youth activities were even better this year.   More people came and children and young people joined in to more activities than ever and all the activities were still FREE. 

Craft stalls at the 2009 Zig Zag FestivalArts and Craft stalls

Arts and Craft Stalls whose producers sold and displayed their wares have always been a popular feature of the festival. This was your chance to buy something really special - maybe a hand-made Chrismas present for someone special.  The variety and the quality this year was outstanding. 



Food Stalls

Every year the food stalls provide great variety of foods, and of course fresh coffee and ice cream prepared by experts. 





The Festival Parade

The evening Festival Parade started at 6:00pm and headed out from the Centro Car Park through the main shopping precinct of Kalamunda on Haynes Street finishing in Stirk Park at 6:30. 

The parade is always a big highlight for the hundreds of people who come to watch and join in the fun along the main street of Kalamunda.  In the 2009 Parade we had the The Hills Pipe Band, Kalamunda Swimming Club, the Kalamunda Heritage History Village volunteers in costume and with the vintage bus, Michael Alvarez - the Kite Man, Ozmosis playing traditional Catalan clarinets, Falls Road Primary School with AC/PVC musical Instruments, the Soroptimists of Helena Valley and the Terrace (who organised the parade this year), the High Wycombe Red Hat Ladies, Hocus Pocus Fancy Dress and Hot Air Balooning, the ever popular Black Nonnas, and the Kalamunda Venture Scouts and their 25 Festivals Caterplosion float.

Every year people ask how they can join the parade next time, if your school or community group would like to be in the next parade, please contact us on 9291 3092.

The Parade came to the main sound shell stage in the park to herald the start of the Festival Finale Concert.  This year we were thrilled to have the Kalamunda Youth Swing Band.  The temperature was warm the night air was still, and the singers were great too.

Zalamunda Yoush Swing Band on the sound shell stage as the sunset paints the sky

 


Zig Zag Community Arts Inc.

2010 Projects



Community meeting IDEAS SESSION
Have a say in what happens this year
Town Square Community Hall
Tuesday 2 March 2010 7pm to 9pm

Bush Dance
14 March 2010 Stirk Park Kalamunda
with Numguts Bush Band

Youth Band Nights
School holidays: April, July and October

Wednesday Night Music Sessions
7:30pm till 10pm (starting 27 January 2010)
11 Headingly Road Kalamunda

Madjitil Moorna Choir
Rehearsals start 8 February2010

Friends of the Festival Blog


Festival Stalls 2010

Zig Zag Community Arts Inc.

2009 Projects


October 2009 Parade Float Workshops

Madjitil Moorna Choir singers of indigenous music
Madjitil Moorna Halls Creek Project News here

Youth Band Night Music performance for young bands 

Zig Zag Music Sessions Wednesday nights

Artz in the Park youth project Blacksmithing & Murals project during 2009 July school holidays

Bush Dance in Stirk Park Featured Numguts Bush Band & Black Chook Chutney

PHOTOS of 2009 bush dance here

60's Night Dance September 2009 at the Kalamunda Club

Zig Zag held a great event: HeART in the Park  Look how creative people can be...

Press Cuttings 2009


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About Zig Zag Community Arts Inc.


We are a not for profit group run by volunteers to promote the arts and community action in the hills and foothills communities roughly within the Shire of Kalamunda. We are an incorporated group, (registered as deductable gift recipient for GST).

The Kalamunda Zig Zag Community Arts Festival began in the early 1980's as a local Shire initiative. During the first 10 years of its existence, responsibility gradually shifted to the community, until 1993 when the Festival Committee became a separate entity as a community-based non-profit incorporated group.

<>Between 1994 and 1998, the focus of the Festival Committee was on events and activities for the one-day festival. Since then there has been an increased emphasis on events across the year, and on gaining input from youth. Zig Zag Community Arts has taken on a broad community development role with extended programs that involve many sectors of the community. These have included projects that extend throughout the year and other significant events. The change reflects the recognition of the value of the Festival and the Arts as tools for addressing social and community issues.

The committee consists entirely of volunteers.  They are community members with a broad range of skills including community development, project management, music, teaching and youth work.  Throughout the year project teams coordinate art and music workshops that involve both professionals and gifted amateurs. 

The Aim of Zig Zag Community Arts is to involve the community in the appreciation of, and participation in community arts.

In 2010 the Famous Zig Zag Festival will be on Sunday 30th October - our annual celebration of community creativity and a showcase for the community's arts and cultural achievements.

Zig Zag Community Arts Inc.

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Many Thanks to our 2009 Festival Sponsors

Doing their bit to support the local community
(the ones in blue boxes have links to their respective website)
LotteryWest Supported The Shire of Kalamunda Forestfield Community BankWA Week 2009
  Crabbes IGA Kalamunda  Lesmurdie Medical Centre Centro Kalamunda  
Embers Wood Fired Pizza Logo  Lesmurdie Sand Soil Stockfeed & Bobcat Hire
Rathmann Engineering  Weld East   Mobile Masters
Elsewhere Clothing Kalamunda The Hills Folk Club
Collodel's Ice CreameryEfficient Chips Kalamunda
 High Wycombe IGAHigh Wycombe PharmacyLesmurdie IGA
Kalamunda Optical Barbery SquareNightingales Pharmacy Kalamunda
Just Spectacles Kalamunda Hilltop Veterinary Hospital
   Moz Quinn Physiotherapy Kalamunda

In-Kind sponors and supporters

Kalamunda ABC BookshopJohn Day MLAZig Zag Graphics Kalamunda
   Soroptimists of Helena Valley (& the Terrace)Kalamunda Chamber of CommerceLions International Lesmurdie Lesmurdie Lions 
 Kalamunda Venture Scouts  Creative Seeds Healing ArtsInspireArt workshops studio and more

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Page updated 7 February 2010 MC