Date: Sat Mar 23, 2002
Subject: Report: The Big Weekend

Hi folks at home and around the globe,

Last weekend was certainly a big one and I thought you might be interested to hear my impressions. Sunday was the night of the EthnoSuperLounge Sayonara gig at The Zoo but first there was the Brisbane Social Forum...

The Brisbane Social Forum was held at The Powerhouse, a local arts space during the day on Saturday and Sunday. About 200 people attended including quite a few prominent local activists and a couple of prominent international ones too. The forum was organised according to the Open Space model, where participants proposed workshop topics on the first morning and then people attended workshops as they liked throughout the weekend. So in all there were about 18 spaces with groups of people ranging from 5 to 200 talking about social issues including the environment, political and economic, indigenous and many more issues. My workshop was entitled "Creative Arts and Crossing Boundaries - using cross-cultural arts as a means of spreading awareness of social issues and the creative process as a model for resolving those issues." It was quite an interesting discussion with about 20 people.

The big highlight of the weekend for most of the attendants was a spoken word and acoustic set by Michael Franti and members of Spearhead. Very inspiring energising poetry , speech and song, which actually elevated me to such a level that I was unable to participate in any workshops later that afternoon. My favourite line was "All the freaky people make the beauty in the world!" Check www.spearheadvibrations.com for more on Spearhead's positive activist music.

So after all that I raced off to The Zoo to get set for my last gig in Brisbane for who knows how long? It was a really nice party too - about 20 of my musician friends came along to play for about 110 people from around town, quite a few from the Social Forum. The music was mellow and the vibes were positive and loving. There were so many acts that I had programmed 20 minute sets from everyone, so everyone was giving it up for the show as a whole, which became quite a varied and dynamic show. The acts were - sitar/bass performance, 3 tablas together, Bhakti bhajans, Gopi & friends' jazzy ilimba numbers, Electric Tipi's excellent ambient electronica/guitar songs, a great African drumming set from Elliott & co, an ambient percussive journey with Motoyuki Niwa, Turkish/flamenco with Feridun Avar and Andrew Veivers, an acoustic Zimbira set and one final jam song - a mellow jazzy number with Feridun & Tony wailing away. I'd have to say that my fave was the 3 tablas together playing complimentary rhythms in a G minor triad tuning. There were so many magic moments all night that I felt so lucky to have so many friends all prepared to come and play just on my request. Thanks folks!

So that was the last ESL in Brisbane for a while, but I plan to be back with some people from Japan and India to mix it up with the Brisbane folks some time in the next few years. And then together we'll take the world by (peaceful) storm!

Love to all,
Shen
Aum Mani Padme Hum