Building on the last 13 years previous experience and with the support of hundreds of community members Byron Harmony Day 2019 was an even bigger success than previously with the entire event being presented in Mullumbimby Civic Hall again this year – for the second year in a row.
The Byron Harmony Festival program took place on the 27 April 2019 and was an even more extraordinary and exciting program than ever with 11 hours of performances and workshops including many new and exciting acts such as French musician Bobby Paquet, an amazing opening ceremony by highly regarded elders Uncle Magpie and Uncle Lewis Walker plus fantastic Aboriginal dances by 38 member-strong “Bush Ballet” from Murwillumbah, Angola Capoeira, Aloha Hula as well as our new headlining acts Yoyo Tuki representing Rapa Nui Easter Island, Natty Dolaiasi direct from the Solomon Islands plus the Batala Project – Brazilian Women Drummers.
This year the program once again featured a very strong program of Japanese culture such as Sakura Classical Japanese dance (Gold Coast), Kizuna Taiko drums (Gold Coast) Wadaiko Sho young drummers(GC) and a Japanese Parade led by the Waggaki Band coordinated by Japanese coordinator Mayu Akiba.
This year, the Byron Harmony Festival attracted the participation of about 300 performers and food/market vendors from many different cultures such as African, Solomon Islands, Indigenous, Easter Island, Thai, Japanese, Indonesian, Middle Eastern, Hawaiian, Turkish, Indian, Brazillian, French performers, volunteers and workshop leaders and attracted an audience of approximately 2000 local community members.
The event was opened by traditional song man Uncle Magpie, Uncle Lewis Walker and the Bush Ballet Dancers plus local MP Tamara Smith. We are very honored to have such wonderful support from Uncle Magpie and Uncle Lewis Walker.
Many thanks to coordinators Judy Shelley, Fabrizio Calafuri, Mayu Akiba, Tracey Darsana and the kind assistance of Jess Gilmore and Belle Budden from Byron Council and Penny May from St Vinnies and all other volunteers in the Harmony Team for all their hard work. In the lead up to the Festival regular Friday meetings were held at Byron YAC to plan the event together. Many thanks to Byron Youth Service for use of office space for meetings and to the Mullumbimby Neighborhood Centre for their support and use of venue space.
Special thanks to Fabrizio Calafuri who successfully achieved a 2 year grant from Regional Arts NSW of $10,000 per year for coordination of the festival. This has been a fantastic support to Byron Harmony Festival. Many thanks also to Byron Council for providing a regular annual donation of $2000. Other sponsors include BayFM Community Radio, Kennards Hire, Vinnies and the Community Broadcasting Foundation who for the first time provided $2500 for a media tent/outside recording project involving BayFm Ethnic presenters Malikeh Michels, Yolanda Santiago and Yumiko Suzuki in undertaking live interviews and performances in the media tent which has now been edited down into a 2 part radio series.
Another very significant project of the Byron Harmony Team has been to sponsor and support the Solomon Islands Elder and Traditional Custodian Natty Dolaiasi to visit Australia to perform at Byron Harmony Day and other significant events such as the Kinship Festival, Festuri Festival, Moo Fest and others as well as participating in the BECOME project at Byron Multicultural during the one year period 2018-2019.
Many thanks to Solomon Airlines to provide a free air fare for Natty Dolaiasi to visit Australia for his East Coast Cultural Tour.
Many thanks also to Sebastian Sinclair for his ongoing support in designing and updating the web page : www.byronharmony.com and to Judy, Tracey Darsana, Mayu and others for work on the Byron Harmony Facebook page.
Byron Harmony Festival 2019 Feedback
ElectorateOffice Ballina Mon, Jul 29, 2019
Hi Judy,
Thank you for this! It was certainly Tamara’s pleasure to be a part of this event and she is glad to hear that it was a success.
Please do keep us updated on any further information for the 2020 event.
Kind regards,
Kirsty Donovan
Electorate Officer
The Office of Tamara Smith
Member for BallinaThe office of Tamara Smith MP respectfully acknowledges the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land on which we work – the Bundjalung Nation
Tatiana Belly Dance Jul 8, 2019
Hi Tracey,
Thank you, it was a very well organised event with such a diversity of talent and colour.. very happy we could be a part of it
Kind regards
Tatiana
Spiritbellydance
Lilith – Mana Aloha Hula 29th July 2019
“Aloha Judy,
Thank you for the thank you! It feels good to be appreciated, and we’d be delighted to continue our tradition of performing Hawaiian hula for Harmony Day 2020. We’re of course also happy to donate a free hula lesson after one of your multicultural lunches, perhaps later in the year in warm weather
Penny May 24th June 2019Dear Byron Harmony Day Committee,
Thank you very much for my Certificate of Appreciation. It was my pleasure to help support such a fabulous event.
Sincerely,
Penny May
Janisse Phillis: Well Done Judy Shelley. Big job organising Harmony Day. Looks great!
Bethanie at Cape Byron Steiner School….
” Hi Judi, Natty and Yoyo,
Sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye or thank you! (Had to stay
with my rascal class and then do bus duty.
I just wanted to say THANKYOU SO SO VERY MUCH for coming and
sharing your songs and culture with us. We are all so grateful!! And wish you
well on your journeys.
Thank you thank you thank you
Corrina Beacham
Hi Judy.
Thank you so much!
The feedback I can give you from the Roma dancers, is that we all had a fantastic time. Enjoyed our performance and felt very welcome.
Thank you to all the team behind the scenes you did a fantastic job and your hard work paid off. Much love
|
Natty Dolaiasi Hey folks… thanks again for all your help and support.. such a great time with you guys and looking forward to seeing you all again for the next Byron harmony festival…lm so honoured to be part of this great festival thank you tumas.. Natty dolaiasi |
PS. The time allocation for each performance need to be strictly on Time
Junko Thomson Mon Jun3, 2019
Dear Judy,
Thank you very much for your lovely email with kind words and a Certificate of Appreciation. It was our great pleasure to perform some traditional Japanese dance at your wonderful festival and we all enjoyed the whole experience very much.
Looking forward to working with you in the future. Yours sincerely,
Junko Thomson,
Sakura Dance Group
Tatiana Bellydance Fri, May 17 2019
Hello Judy,
What a fabulous festival … each and every year it’s becoming more rich in culture, colour and diversity. Always a pleasure to be part of Harmony Day… excellent job…thank you!
Tatiana
Anna Carbonell June 4, 2019
Dear Judy,
It was such a delight to perform at Byron Harmony Festival. Thank you so much for having us be part of this fun and cultural festival. The new addition to the festival was superb. The jumping castle was a hit and having an outdoor stage topped it off.
We look forward to performing again next year.
Mahalo nui loa,
Anna and Aloha Hula dancers
Meninas da Lua Sun, Jun 2 2019
Hi Judy,
Thank you for the opportunity. The Festival It was lovely:)
Thank you 🙂
Cheers, Priscila Rios
Batala Samba Reggae
Giuseppe Abbruzzese May 17, 2019
Hi all,
It was great .. see you all next year!
CIAO BELLIIII
Kind Regards
Celia
Peppe Pizza & La Bottega
Nicolas De Maere D’Aertrijcke May 17, 2019
It was great seeing you too!
It was very good for us we always happy to come to support the harmony festival
See you next year for sure. Thanks again
Regard Nicolas and Sariya
Sala Thai Cooking
Junko Thomson May 15, 2019
Hi Judith,
Congratulations on your great success in holding 2019 Byron Harmony Festival. It was lovely to see you again. The weather was very kind this year to us all. Thank you very much for your kind email. We all enjoyed the whole experience at the festival and we thank you for the great opportunity.
Yours sincerely,
Junko Thomson
Sakura Dance Group
Darren – Jumping Castle
Hi Tracey, Congrats on a wonderful event. It’s rare that in my experience that they’re handled so professionally. Great job team and another great reminder of what a lovely community we reside in! Got to say the festival was so smoothly run, thanks to everyone’s hard work and organisation. I had a great day, I think everyone loved the whole vibe. You are a great team to work with, we did so well!
Mayu
Yes, Tracey We did so well! Thank you so much for great job team! I am super happy to work as team this year! Thank you from my heart @Judy, @ Fabrizio, @Tracey
Fabrizio
Thanks Judy Shelley for providing the inspiration and opportunity to work on Byron Harmony Festival. It was a blast!
Thank you Mayu and Tracey for the passion and dedication to making Byron Harmony Festival a great success! Thanks Judy for keeping us all focused and motivated and bringing the team together.
Judy
Thanks to you Fab for working so hard on many small details that needed taking
care of – there is a lot of work involved to get all the structures in place
for the smooth running on the day! It’s
a very big venue and lots of details to set up – well done for many hours put
in to cover all the bases! Lv jx
Tracey
All the team’s hard work put into organisation paid off well. Smooth sailing! It was more a celebration than a work day! The outdoor stage had a beautiful ambience and flowed well. The indoor stage presented some awesome sounds and visuals, talented entertainers were all stunning in their traditional dress and I found their performances powerful on many levels. In particular the joy offered and shared together. 🙂
Anna Lee Dodds 2nd May 2019
Blessings Fabrizio. It was a great event thank you for all that you do – you’re a champion
Vicki Pauperis May 21, 2019
Thanks was a beautiful day I really enjoyed it very much would love to be part of it again next year if possible let me know till then peace to you and the team. Vicki Pauperis
Lilith Rochas May 31, 2019
Aloha Judy,
Thank you for the thank you! It feels good to be appreciated, and we’d be delighted to continue our tradition of performing Hawaiian hula for Harmony Day 2020.
We’re of course also happy to donate a free hula lesson after one of your multicultural lunches, perhaps later in the year in warm weather.
It was particularly enjoyable this year to work with Fabrizio’s attention to detail and communication skills, which made everything so smooth and easy.
Me ke aloha pumehana (warm regards)
Lilith for Byron Bay Hula – Mana Aloha Troupe
Café Ruru Ba May 13, 2019
Thanks Fabrizio, yes we had a very successful day, once we had our power issues sorted everything flowed smoothly right through the day.
Andrew and Miho
Café Ruru Ba