Earthdance 2005

Originally uploaded by Scootie.

Saturday was a special day, with the arrival of Earthdance 2005. Earthdance is a global event where simultaneous events are held in over 200 cities in over 50 countries, where everyone is dancing to the motto: Give Peace a Dance.

The Melbourne event was held in Fed Square and attracted a few thousand people by the time the day was over. The weather looked a bit iffy at first, and even rained a bit earlier in the day, but this didn't really do much to discourage us hard-core types :) Sure, a few people drifted away when it started to rain but most of us just tucked down a bit more into our coats and stayed where we were. I don't even think the hackie-sack game was even interrupted by the rain, although they did change to a dryer hack when the rain stopped.
Overall the day was fantastic, really good music, lots of good people and a pretty good mini-crew of flickrites. Joe was there of course, as was DJ Mudgutz and I even met up with WenDee from flickr too :)
The highlight of the day for me was seeing some of the costumed capers that are quite common to this event and to Earthcore, such as three people dancing on stilts, two dressed as trees and another dressed as a mermaid, dancing around a large sun while red painted jugglers danced with them. My favourite of all these was three girls 'breaking free' from their urban confines, dressed in ragged suits and ties that had started to become entwined with nature, sporting leaves and tree branches, all the while elevated on stilts made out of milk crates. One of them is pictured here and they were obviously having so much fun it was infectious :)

The Music was top notch and the dancing great fun and we just had a blast. Being the neo-flickr event that it was, we even ran into s2art as we were walking away, as him and his wife Nikki were heading out to dinner for Nikki's birthday. They were going to Transport but we suggested it might be a bit loud with all the DJing going on and that they might try elsewhere. :)