Mosaic Multicultural Festival | Multicultural Australia & Brisbane Serenades

The beautiful Roma St parklands is yet again transformed into a multicoloured feast of food, music, dancing, arts and craft stalls, cooking demonstrations aka Rock around the Wok, processions and key services to celebrate our love and cultural appreciation of diverse voices together at the 2022 Mosaic Festival. This day of celebrations joins the Brisbane Festival for the first time as a part of their Brisbane Serenades program.

I immersed myself in the Celebration stage. I don’t get the opportunity to watch a lot of dancing, so this kept me enthralled all day. I watched over 100 dancers of all ages and styles, inclusive of so many countries all over the world. I was captivated.

The programming was world class and featured short explorations from around the globe. I was taken on a world journey through 6 continents and at least 30 different cultures! There was so much to see that you may never have caught around town, so recommend you check out the following groups because I loved them for different reasons.

Cachicamo Latin Harp, is a South American inspired group and need to be checked out for their musicianship. The Queensland World Dance Academy performed traditional Eastern dance in these beautifully feminine costumes with fans that appeared to just float on clouds. Their performance was truly mesmerising. The Sahara Belly Dancers showcased routines from Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon. Their spicy performance and their backing tracks provided the backdrop to the feel of where these dances originated from. The Tibetan Community of Queensland showcased a very warm hearted village dance and caricature style blend. The Umoco Club, is upbeat Burundian dance group, and they were just great. ‘Umoco’ has two meanings in the mother language, Kirundi: the first is umuco as ‘culture’ and the second meaning is umuco as ‘light’, which both came out in their dance. They were a crowd favourite and like many of the dance groups, the women and children performed together.

The Al Zayton Palestinian Dabke Troupe performed traditional Palestine dance and they were one of the mainly male groups with hand holding and two female dancers involved. I would have loved to find out more about gender roles interpreted into these sorts of routines and would love it if future festivals had a QR code that gave more information or links about the groups. Following them were the Bangladeshi Association of Queensland who wore their beautiful saris and utilised traditional music featuring the harmonium, flute (bashi), tabla, kahun, duki (percussion). The Heilani Polynesian School of Arts danced in grass skirts and woven head dress and arm adornments. They were a bit ‘Disney,’ with the backing tracks crossing over  into the children’s space, but the dances were still joyful with the males angular in interpretation and the women more fluid and rhythmic.

Miramar Middle Eastern Dance was a crowd favourite, forming a large circle performing folkloric styles from Syria and the Levant area. Queensland Guanxi Multicultural Communities spread to the grass from the stage as well. Their large ensemble were dressed in white shirts and long pants with red fans which captured the sun like a flower petal transcending the light. Their routine embedded elements of tai chi movements followed by an all-female group backed by a Chinese pop sound track complete with sultry red dresses for a very captivating performance. Persian Dance For Life featured Iranian dancers and I later learned there are definite customs and rules on how this is performed. Bienvenido Ala Calle (Cuban Dance) was hot with the group utilising break dancing and acrobatics in their dance, flavoured with Reggaeton and Afro fusion, plus hip hop styles. Finally, Dance Masala had just a beautiful Bollywood set, which was again amazing!

These are just some of the many performances featured in the massive action-packed program - there was so much content to discover. The event was so joyous and provided me with numerous insights on how multicultural Brisbane really is and its relevance to celebrate and promote. Not only that, but the audience loved seeing their own culture represented, just like a mini Olympics for the arts. It’s the joy of spontaneous dancing. I don’t think I’ve seen so many conga lines pop up at one event!

MOSAIC provided wonderful opportunities to witness our social fabric unfold. I loved sharing and hearing stories from others during the event.  It’s an African woman asking a group of little kids what country they come from and they don’t know, she asks them what their mum makes, they answer “Rice”, then she asks them what their favourite food is, one answers “Cereal”.

It’s these innocent forays into understanding each other generationally, making space for fun, and being around each other without a worrying about our busy lives, more than that, today was not politicised. It wasn’t full of grandstanding. It was families from cultures all across the world with different beliefs, clothing, values, styles and backgrounds enjoying just being around each other. From the perspective of attending, I was dazzled by little moments of revolution through acts of kindness, courage and brilliance.

This festival is not pretentious! It’s someone’s mum cheering their daughter’s dance troupe. It’s a grandma clapping along. It’s a bunch of kids from at least 20 different cultures playing at the front of the stage. It’s a five year old playing hidey behind the stage’s draped banner with their skinny legs visible and the movement of the body pushing against the material making shapes.

It’s Risa who I’ve just met telling me how she gets teased because her name sounds like fried rice, so she shortened it to make it sound English and dismissed my questioning with good humour. She showed me the quilt her church made and told me it will be exhibited during Mental Health Week in October. She tells me the story of the sunflower and how in darkness they turn to each other, in lightness they stand tall. The quilt is beautiful and full of positive life affirming messages.

The quilt is sitting next to an Iranian lady who explains to me the rules for men and women dancing in her country. Some dances are only for women, she can tell these by the beat of the music. She tells me how various traditional dances were born out of needing and finding motivation when fishing in the Persian Gulf and how singing and dancing energises the farmer’s momentum to do a day’s work. She tells me about different parts of her country and where gender rules are more relaxed, she says all her children were born here and she’s been here for 29 years, but still loves her country. She has a warm knowing face and I stumble over my words, but she is generous in her sharing.

As Risa says: “MOSAIC is an amalgamation of cultures and it shows we can all be one.” I absolutely connected to her comment, this event was truly such an uplifting experience for all.