{"id":62,"date":"2004-10-17T08:05:00","date_gmt":"2004-10-17T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/?p=62"},"modified":"2015-07-11T13:53:05","modified_gmt":"2015-07-11T02:53:05","slug":"floriade-giant-lifesavers-tyre-swans-rainbow-serpents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/2004\/10\/17\/floriade-giant-lifesavers-tyre-swans-rainbow-serpents\/","title":{"rendered":"Floriade: Giant Lifesavers, Tyre Swans, Rainbow Serpents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/serpent.jpg\" alt=\"bheads\" title=\"bheads\" style=\"margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; float: left\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Here are some pictures of a few other things that took my fancy at Floriade &#8211; I like the roving entertainment more than the massed European flowers.<\/p>\n<p>There was a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/serpeant.jpg\">rainbow serpent<\/a> swimming in Nerang Pool, designed and created by Aeon Mortimer. Its a big inflatable, and apparently it can spray a fine mist of water from its spines, creating rainbows in the air around it. Nice idea. Aeon&#8217;s puppet play <a href=\"http:\/\/www.funnybones.com.au\/storybook.htm\">The Great Big Story Book<\/a> was also there. Designed as a giant pop-up book, it tells a version of the dreamtime story of Tiddalik the Frog, with puppet creatures stepping out of the pages of the book. (My favourite picture book version of Tiddalick is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/exec\/obidos\/redirect?tag=spiritsdancin-20&amp;path=ASIN\/0140506748\/\">What Made Tiddalik Laugh<\/a> by Joanna Troughton. It has lovely illustrations, and the kind of lame jokes that pre-schoolers love because they are so lame.)<\/p>\n<p>I was also enjoyed catching up with <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20110410221111\/http:\/\/www.jigsawtheatre.com.au\/index.html\">Jigsaw<\/a>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20041231092547\/http:\/\/www.jigsawtheatre.com.au:80\/programs\/2004\/Flotsam.html\">Flotsam and Jetsam<\/a>, a one-woman show acted by Chrissie Shaw, and based on collected stories of children who lived on lighthouse islands in Australia. I particularly liked Mrs Ingram&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/flotsam.jpg\">windswept dress<\/a> that could be slipped into and out of in a flash.<\/p>\n<p>Icarus Performance Troupe from Sydney were lots of fun, jogging about the gardens as giant muscle-bound lifesavers. They blew their whistles, bossed the crowds into swimming between the flags, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/lifesavers1.jpg\">struck stong-man poses<\/a> (complete with appropriate grunts and roars!) at the drop of a hat.<\/p>\n<p>The flock of 100 black swans made from old rubber car tyres interested me not so much for what they were, but as a reflection on the fact that when they were common garden decorations in the 50&#8217;s and 60&#8217;s (or earlier) they were always painted white. I suppose they were part of that era&#8217;s acceptance of the idea of England as the home. As reported in the Canberra Times, the swans were made by Greg Hedger of Limestone Creek Enterprises:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><small>&#8216;Mr Hedger said each swan took about an hour to fashion &#8211; once he had the design sorted &#8211; plus a bit of time for painting. The tyres were heated by engine exhaust or in a glasshouse so the rubber was easier to cut and twist inside out.<\/small><\/p>\n<p><small>The tyres were sourced from a company in Melbourne, which was believed to have held a stockpile for use as swings. While the steel belting in a modern radial tyre is good for motorists, it does not wear safely in children&#8217;s swingsets. Neither is it suitable for swan sculpting, because it&#8217;s too difficult to slice.<\/small><\/p>\n<p><small>Sizes ranged from 12- and 13-inch car tyres to truck tyres. Mr Hedger&#8217;s offerings have been planted with a new variety of pansy, named Waterfall.<\/small><\/p>\n<p><small>After the festival, Mr Hedger intends to take the swans under his wing. While the Floriade examples are under offer &#8211; Mr Hedger&#8217;s wife has her name on two &#8211; he&#8217;ll take up the slack afterwards. He&#8217;s already had orders from ladies in Burra and Orange and a school in Armidale. He had no idea what the swans would sell for, but would probably charge less than $100 apiece.&#8217;<\/small><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There is an article about the traditional Australian art of sculpting swans from old tyres <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/articles\/2004\/03\/19\/1079199418378.html?from=storyrhs\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Finally the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.actewagl.com.au\/default.aspx?loc=\/campaigns\/scarecrow.htm\">Scarecrow Competition<\/a> :-). I have a soft spot for the scarecrows because they come so much from the everyday community, and because such a wide interpretation of the concept of a scarecrow is acceptable.  Here are some photographs of just a few of them that took my fancy:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/scarecrow.jpg\">Domestic Goddess<\/a> (Woman of Steel, With Forked Tongue, Ready to Spring) by Barlin Event Hire<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/scarecrow2.jpg\">In Bega Everyones Dreaming of Rain<\/a>, by Merimbulla Rudoplh Steiner School. The Bega Valley down on the south coast is dairy country, and must be feeling the drought as much as any of us.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/scarecrow7.jpg\">French Frog<\/a> by Telopea Park School. Appropriately, Telopea is a bi-lingual English\/French public school.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/scarecrow4.jpg\">Bunyip<\/a>, by Hindmarsh Student Group (?)<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/scarecrow6.jpg\">Mermaid<\/a>, by Braidwood Preschool Association. Their use of tin lids for scales is very effective, just as good as the CDs that many others used, for instance in the following one.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/scarecrow9.jpg\">Fish<\/a>, by Waniassa (?) Learning Support Unit<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/scarecrow3.jpg\">Refugees and Asylum Seekers don&#8217;t want a Red Carpet Welcome<\/a>, by Amnesty International. I&#8217;d like to think they were prompted by my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/puppets\/pictures\/picsscarecrow.html\">Howard<\/a> last year.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/scarecrow8.jpg\">Person in the Bath<\/a>, by Radford College<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiritsdancing.com\/blog\/scarecrow0.jpg\">Dragon<\/a>, by the O&#8217;Connor Co-operative School. A long rhapsody in plastic!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here are some pictures of a few other things that took my fancy at Floriade &#8211; I like the roving entertainment more than the massed European flowers. There was a rainbow serpent swimming in Nerang Pool, designed and created by Aeon Mortimer. Its a big inflatable, and apparently it can spray a fine mist of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[48,30,4,14,10,15,9],"tags":[143,1378,147,155,159,154,1355,1365,158,156,1366,157,153],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-canberra","category-creatures","category-puppetry","category-puppets","category-sculpture","category-street-theatre","category-visual-art","tag-bodysuits","tag-canberra","tag-floriade","tag-icarus","tag-inflatable","tag-lifesavers","tag-puppetry","tag-puppets","tag-rainbow-serpent","tag-scarecrows","tag-street-theatre","tag-swan-tyres","tag-tiddalik"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paZhI-10","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3134,"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions\/3134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritsdancing.com\/sdblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}