Date: Sat, 28 Feb 1998 00:45:44 +1100 From: Paul Canning Subject: What's in the Queers for reconciliation float? Queers for Reconciliation will be a major element in tonight's twentieth anniversary Lesbian & Gay Mardi Gras Parade. Our float will be one of the largest in the largest ever Parade. It consists of four elements (in order of appearance) The Sand Goanna This was commissioned by Moree Council for its cultural festival in 1997. Built of steel, ply, hessian, chicken wire, solar flex and paint, it was the reconciliation float that lead the parade down the main street of Moree. It represents collaboration between Mardi Gras artists and Kamilaroi artists at the Nindetharna Co-operative in Moree. Not only is the goanna a beautiful construction, it also represents an example of the processes that can be involved in reconciliation. The project of building the goanna involved skill sharing between Mardi Gras artists and Aboriginal artists and represents positive links between indigenous and non indigenous communities. Bringing the goanna and two of the Aboriginal artists responsible for its construction to Mardi Gras highlights the many different ways in which reconciliation can occur at local levels and between diverse communities and particularly one way in which gays and lesbians can participate in acts of reconciliation. Dancers Dancing is and essential part of the Mardi Gras parade and Queers for Reconciliation are no exception! Working with experienced choreographers and dance teachers, this group will perform a simple routine which utilizes the motif of fences and hands. The dance will enact the construction and destruction of fences in order to convey the ways in which non indigenous people have used their land, as well as the barriers which prevent reconciliation, and which must be broken down in order to achieve it. The hand motif is an established motif of reconciliation, which has already been used widely by groups such as Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation. Windmill with Smell-o-rama The windmill is the kind found in the outback, used for pumping water from artesian bores. it is a steel structure on wheels. Its blades will be replaced by hands from ply and painted in the colours of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags. One side of the tail will be an Aboriginal flag and the other a Torres Strait Islander flag. The windmill symbolizes non-indigenous uses of land in Australia, evoking a history and mythology about cultivation of the bush. The windmill is a spunky structure which, rather than celebrating a past of rapacious unsustainable land cultivation and appropriation, speaks to a synthesis between indigenous and non indigenous land uses. The smell-o-rama pumps a eucalyptus scented spray high into the air to waft over the crowd. this is a part of a desire to incorporate smell into the sensual assault that is the Mardi Gras parade, smell being very evocative, memorable and often under-utilized in public spectacle. the crowd will be transported to the Australian bush by a scent which is familiar and yet, in central Sydney, unexpected. Walking group This group incorporates those people who do not wish to dance but who nevertheless wish to show their support for reconciliation in a queer context.There are approximately 350 people walking in the float with groups from Penrith, Melbourne, Canberra and Brisbane. Walkers will be wearing tee-shirts printed with the Queers for reconciliation logo and will carry plastic hands which were decorated at the Mardi Gras Fair Day stall. the colours of the hands invoke all the sparkle, fluff and frou-frou of Mardi Gras, a "camping up" of the motif that was so successful at the Sea of Hands outside Parliament House in Canberra last year. The walkers will also give spectators mementoes of the float in the form of stickers with pro-land rights messages. For more information on Queers for Reconciliation visit our website at http://reconciliation.queer.org.au or email us at reconciliation@queer.org.au Happy Mardi Gras!