The Enchanted River Festival - A Creative Community Celebration ...

The Enchanted River Festival - A Creative CommunityCelebration of the Murray RiverNational Waterwatch Conference 2005By Annie Edney & Toni CostelloIntroductionEnchanted River is a celebration of the Murray River. It is also aninnovative community education project with a focus on river health.Taking the form of a Lantern Procession and Outdoor TheatrePerformance held on the banks of the Murray River in Albury Wodonga,Enchanted River provides an opportunity for the community to begin tohonour and celebrate their river.By introducing creative expression of people’s feelings, Enchanted Riveroffers accessible and meaningful interaction with the lifeblood of thecommunity.Scientists have done some amazing work on issues of river health in theMurray Darling Basin, yet what seems to remain elusive is the question ofhow to engage the community. Some in the environmental sector haveseen Enchanted River as an affective way to build community capacity.Unusual nature of blending arts with scienceAn Education Kit is researched and developed by environmental scientistGeoff Edney with a story written by Joanna Davidson.The characters and the story are “tools” to make the information asaccessible as possible to the broadest possible range of people. The storyis continued in the performance at the end of the Lantern Procession.The Education Kit is used to inform the community and help inspire thecreative work that they make for Enchanted River. For example, a lanternmay have a visual narrative decorating it’s sides as one personsinterpretation of what they learned from the Education Kit.The Kit also has activities and games for teachers, a glossary of terms,information on water quality and habitat, and a range of other sections.

Shifting the way we think about the environmentOne of the driving forces behind the development of Enchanted River iscreator Annie Edney's passionate belief that we need to change the waywe think about the environment.Past experiences have shown that it has never worked to think about theland we live on as some kind of product we can open when we need it,and throw away when we’ve finished with it.We need to borrow something from our Indigenous people and startthinking of being part of the land, honouring and celebrating it,recognising the spirit of the land, and things growing on it, water flowingthrough it, animals who co-habit with us. Enchanted River provides theopportunity for that celebration; for people to come with whateverthoughts and feelings they have, and celebrate with others from theircommunity, and find a commonality in that celebration.Finding different ways to engage people.With each year that passes the communities engagement withEnchanted River becomes more meaningful. People have a betterunderstanding of the process of making a community celebration.They know there’s solid scientific information in the Education Kit.They know what it feels like to walk along the path beside their MurrayRiver carrying a lantern they made themselves.They know how exciting it is to watch a performance written speciallyfor their river.Relationships develop between people who might not usually cometogether at all. A community workshop space is set up which is especiallyaccessible to any level of engagement with the project. So people cancome any time when they have a spare hour, and work on a giantpuppet, or part of a shadow play, or they can attend a workshop for anhour or so… or they can simply come to the event.For those who learn through their creativity, Enchanted River is an idealeducational opportunity.Critical to the success of Enchanted River is the openhearted nature ofthe community cultural development artists who come to work on theproject. They have the skills to ensure that each person who participates

in Enchanted River is able to offer their individual expertise, bringing adiverse range of skills together to make something amazing.Social development a vital elementPart of Annie's reasons for developing Enchanted River in this way is toplay a small part in making a better social culture. As a species we haveall but lost the ability to “group” successfully, creatively andcollaboratively. There is an increased incidence of isolation and alienationin our society that leads to awful results like youth suicide etc.In Enchanted River workshops Annie adopts an enthusiastic and generousattitude that encourages people to make amazing work, and to believethey can. The objective of this accomplishment is to take pride in thecelebration they have made together, and to want to come togetheragain; specially with the motivation of working towards better health fortheir river and surrounding catchments.The North East CMA's Waterwatch Program PartnershipThe involvement of the North East Catchment Management Authority's(CMA) Waterwatch Program with Enchanted River has proven to be avaluable partnership in environmental education and communityengagement.The Waterwatch program enables a direct link between primary schoolchildren in the north east and the Enchanted River Festival, allowing theEnchanted River Education Kit to slot into schools due to the welldeveloped and well respected Waterwatch Program within the area. Aswell as this the Waterwatch Program and CMA become part of a creativefestival that brings together and engages a diverse range of people in thecommunity, in a creative and celebratory way, commonly sharing arespect and responsibility for the protection of our local waterways.The CMA recognises the importance of today's primary school childrenwho live in the north east catchment area - they face an enormousresponsibility as tomorrow’s custodians of its many rivers and of the landthrough which these flow. It is for this reason that we have theWaterwatch Program in the North East.The CMA's role is to work towards the protection and sustainable use ofnorth east waterways by encouraging active participation andengagement of the north east community in catchment management.

Enchanted River helps to work towards this by changing people’sattitudes, knowledge and feelings of river health in a community driven,creative, fun and hands-on way.North East Waterwatch Coordinator Toni Costello believes that EnchantedRiver is very beneficial to our regional community. We all have greatconcerns for the health of the Murray River and catchments, and thispartnering of environmental groups, local councils, community health, thearts and the broader community is seen as a very strong progressive movetowards a better understanding of the issues at hand. It will also lead to amore harmonious engagement of and improved relations betweendiverse groups in the community.This unique partnership allows Waterwatch participants to come togetherwith other diverse community groups and members to celebrate thephysical, social and spiritual landscapes they inhabit and know so well.School children's valuable contributions as part of the Festival draw upontheir experiences, knowledge and understandings of their local riverenvironment.Enchanted River invigorates the community’s feelings towards the MurrayRiver and surrounding catchments and allows people to creativelycommunicate a deep and abiding sense of belonging to the catchmentand shared responsibility for its future. This unique way of engagingcommunity groups and individuals can work in partnership with so manydifferent organisations and groups towards a common goal, which makesit a very effective, and creative engagement tool.