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

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