Lynne Donnelly was working in Tokyo doing décor for trance parties, Earthdance Tokyo 1997 being one of the last parties she was involved with. Lynne came back home full of enthusiasm about the Earthdance events she convinced Frankie from Green Ant and other promoters to collaborate and create the first Earthdance Benefit Night in 1998.
The first Earthdance party was a club event held at the Cage. 1000 people attended and raised $9000 to donate for a charity. The party was linked to other parties around the world via internet. With rising costs over the years the internet link is now impossible.
Fast-forward to now- Earthdance has been split into a free festival and Benefit night. The festival began because the organizers realized that many people liked the concept but didn’t want to go clubbing. Over the years many different activities have been introduced at the festival that wouldn’t be possible in a club. The Free festival allows greater support from sponsors, media and of course a wider audience.
This years Earthdance will be held at Federation Square. Lynne Donnelly said, “The management at Federation Square did not have any objections when we approached them to apply to use the venue, in fact they have been supportive and helpful.” Surprisingly there are no noise restrictions for the entire event, unlike the previous experience last year at Gasworks. Federation Square is a community space that is centrally located so I am positive that many people that don’t know about Earthdance will attend.
The main theme of Earthdance is dancing for World Peace. Lynne Donnelly explains, “Earthdance creates a fantastic community feeling. People who come can expect to meet friendly, interesting people, be entertained by diverse music and have an opportunity to participate by making a statement about world peace, we are protesting in a positive way- instead of marching we are dancing”.
There are over 50 countries with 120 parties participating across the globe, these include North & South America, Asia, Europe and Scandinavia. All of the parties run in real time so when Australia’s is ending, San Francisco is setting up and London Earthdance is starting. Chris Decker is the founder of Earthdance International, he co ordinates all of the festivals and parties globally from his office in the states.
The Global Dance Floor Link will happen at 12am GMT. Every party across the world will play the track “the prayer for peace” at 9am this will be the final track at Ostara the Earthdance Benefit night at the Colonial Hotel.
Earthdance supports five main issues, the freedom of Tibet, welfare of children, youth, the environment and indigenous tribes, which gives a lot of scope for all the different events to focus on an area that may be relevant to their particular region”, explained Lynne. Most of the money will be donated to orphans or young people because Melbourne Earthdance has began to look at children’s welfare and youth issues.
SYN FM will be broadcasting live and RMITV will be making a documentary on the day. The acts on the day include The Rush Effect Live, Mantrix Live, Riff Raff and Decoy Live among others.
According to Lynne the patrons attending should look forward to the “good music, good vibe, interesting people to hang out with, excellent performance, décor & visuals and to dance for world peace in the middle of the city”. If that’s not convincing I don’t know what else could be?
Earthdance is a free festival and takes place September 20th, 11am till 8pm at Federation Square, City.
