“I’ve only been in Australia for five years,” Ariganello remembers, “but that first year I came and volunteered with a whole bunch of friends and that was the first time I’d ever been. I gradually started doing different jobs and working within the Lifestyle Village for a couple of years and then ended up with this role and it’s been great. It’s been amazing seeing the different areas of Rainbow and now being one of the coordinators – it’s just really great.”
Attractions like Lifestyle Village are what set Rainbow Serpent apart from your run of the mill music festival. An area within the festival, Lifestyle Village is best described as the cultural hub of Rainbow Serpent, a place to experience the festival’s unique sense of community. “It’s one area that punters can go to experience other aspects of the festival than just music. There are workshops and talks and an art gallery that you can stroll through. A lot of people come and they’ll just relax in the Village. In the centre we have a permaculture garden that becomes a central meeting point for a lot of people. Even just during the day when it gets really hot, a lot of people will come in and relax and sit down in one of the workshop spaces and just chill out for a bit. It’s definitely a great option rather than just spending all day on the dance floor,” Ariganello explains.
This year sees the introduction of the Sacred Soundsphere to Lifestyle Village. “Yeah, it’s the first time it’s ever been at Rainbow Serpent,” says Ariganello, “so it will be exciting to see that. There’ll be sound healing and meditation and performances going on every day in a dome. It’s going to be like a sacred space – an alter – and people can go in and take place in meditation circles and singing and healing and things.” This year’s Village also sees the return of the Solar Cinema, screening original, and often strange, films, shorts and animations throughout the weekend. Canadian director Jeet-Kei Leung will also be there speaking about his new documentary, The Bloom. Kids Zone will again be packed with arts and crafts, dance lessons, puppet shows and lots of special bands and performers for our youngest generation.
Guest speakers are an important part of the Lifestyle Village experience, and this year the running theme of the talks seems to be the extremely relevant issue of international festival culture and its influence on the global community. “Chris Deckker will be speaking about global information and festival culture,” Ariganello explains. “He created EarthDance which is like a global festival movement. Graham St John is really well-known in the scene; he’s written a few books based on global tribe technology, spirituality and side culture. He’s amazing at doing interviews and collecting data from festivals around the world. Jeet-Kei Leung is speaking on the same topic. We seem to have a lot of people who are talking about global festival community, so that should be interesting.”
But of course, one of the most interesting aspects of Rainbow Serpent is the multitude of workshops available around the clock. “We have five different workshop spaces. There are spaces we call inner realm workshops and then there are the outer realm workshops. The inner realm workshops deal more with discussion based topics and people sharing ideas and conversation. It’s usually a more intimate setting. Then outer realm workshops are the movement and dance based things that get people going: yoga, belly dancing, hula, Tai Chi.”
Rainbow Serpent is more than just the music, and, in fact, it’s more than just the art. Ariganello tries to put the essence of the weekend into words. “It really is a community gathering. I think it’s the fact that it feels like family while you’re there. It’s this really amazing feeling of everyone coming together for this one weekend of the year and everyone looks forward to it. It’s a really positive place to be, everyone’s so happy. There’s nothing like it in this country. It’s Australia’s own Burning Man.”
BY KATE MCCARTEN
