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To celebrate the 175th anniversary of the foundation of the Province of South Australia the Adelaide Colonial Dancers and the Adelaide Traditional and Bush Dance Society have organised a Grand Colonial Ball at the Adelaide Town Hall on 25th June. It has been made possible through a History SA SA175 grant as well as generous sponsorship by Adelaide Town Council, Patritti Wines and the Flower Room.

It promises to be a colourful grand spectacle with many in colonial costume while there will be music from the 30 piece Gawler Town Band and the family folk group Tamarisque. Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood will welcome guests with assistance from a Town Crier and a Fort Glanville heritage guard of honour.

The ball will start at 8 pm with the assembled guests joining the Grand March to enter the hall – this was the traditional way for balls to begin in colonial times. There will then be a program of dances including ballroom favorites like Military Two Step and Kings Waltz, and a range of older ‘colonial’ dances many of which can be learned on the spot.

There will also be a display of the famous ‘Alberts Quadrille’ by the Adelaide Colonial Dancers. ‘The Alberts’ was featured in ballrooms for over 100 years. Even if you won’t be dancing, you can watch from the balcony, enjoy the music and join in the ceremonies and supper – it will be a night to remember!

Pre-ball drinks will be served from 7 pm and supper will be provided. Tickets are $50, from all BASS outlets, phone 131 246 or book online. The council has $3 evening parking available at their UPark in the Central Market which stays open until 1am.

It is 25 years since a similar ball was held in classical grandeur of Adelaide Town Hall designed by Edmund Wright and hailed as “the largest municipal building south of the Equator” when it was officially opened on 20 June 1866. On this occasion, there was a grand ball for 800 guests which reportedly went on until 5 am but this one finishes at midnight!

Ticket holders are encouraged to come to the four practice evenings available from 31 May to try out the dances prior to the ball. For more information see our events calendar, contact Pam on 8277 0738 or visit the Adelaide Colonial Dancers’ website.

 

A host of community organisations are holding events over the next few months to acknowledge the 175^th anniversary of the foundation of the Province of South Australia. SA 175 events are listed on the calendar of events on this site. Events listed so far include a performance about writer CJ Dennis, lectures on South Australian history topics, displays and exhibition openings and multi-media events. Industrial history depicted in art, historic fire engines and modern sound and light shows are all on offer for SA175.

The calendar of Events will soon be expanded and community organisations are invited to list any events that connect with South Australian history. Contact community@history.sa.gov.au to have an event added to the Calendar.

 

I have always been fascinated by traditional festivals from around the world so it was a great pleasure to visit the Ukrainian Museum’s Easter Bazaar a few weekends ago in the backstreets of Hindmarsh. The museum was a hive of activity when I arrived at what appeared to be Kiev Central that Sunday morning. Amidst Ukrainian chatter, women in traditionally embroidered cross stitch blouses distributed plates of open sandwiches of herring and salad or ladled bowls of bright purple borsch (beetroot soup).

Irena Boujenko, the President of the Ukrainian Women’s Association enthusiastically gave me a tour of their displays which particularly focus on Ukrainian art and crafts. Many of the handcrafted items – wood carving, ceramics, embroidery and costume (some over 100 years old) – were brought to Adelaide during the two main waves of migration in 1949 and 1992 from this second largest country in Europe.

I was curious to learn what everyone was carrying in plastic bags in baskets or under their arms. The table in the meeting room at the back of the museum was soon laden with these unusually shaped offerings and I discovered that they were the traditional paska, rich sweet Easter bread, decorated with Christian symbols or a rising sun harking back to its pagan origins. More traditional Ukrainian Easter crafts were on display, the results of a recent workshop – embroidered ritual cloths or rushnyky and the world famous decorated Easter eggs or pysanky. Certificates were handed out to all the participants and it is heartening to see how Adelaide’s Ukrainian community are keeping their traditions alive and preserving their history through the museum. I’m certainly looking forward to their About Time History Festival event, a fashion show of traditional costumes and embroidery workshop on Sunday 22 May.

You can see more photos from the Easter Bazaar on here

In 2011 SA History Week has become About Time: South Australia’s History Festival.

Over 500 events will be presented across the state from 1 to 31 May, organised by over 300 community museums, history groups, cultural groups, local councils, collecting institutions, businesses, churches and individuals. The move to a month-long festival format reflects the ongoing growth of the program since it began as SA History Week in 2004. 2011 also marks 175 years since the foundation of the Province of South Australia, and History SA has received a special government grant to run the festival in this anniversary year.

The events offered as part of the program reflect the diversity of South Australia’s history and those who have made it. You can enjoy a dinner at the SA Maritime Museum showcasing ship-board foods from different eras, learn about explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins at an open day at his cottage in Mount Bryan East, take a tour exposing Adelaide’s gritty underbelly at West Terrace Cemetery, participate in an all-day symposium on the archaeology of Aboriginal South Australia, do some hands-on history helping volunteers restore the outback town of Farina, visit an exhibition about the contribution of Hungarians to South Australia’s primary industries, or take the opportunity to share and hear stories of working at GM’s Holden factory at Elizabeth. And that’s only a small sample of what’s on offer!

Visit the About Time website for full details of events and features to help you get the most out of the festival format. You can also follow us on twitter and facebook or upload your photos to Flickr.

The printed program is also available from your local council, library, visitor centre, community museum or history group.

About Time: South Australia’s History Festival is presented by History SA. Contact us on (08) 8203 9888 or abouttime@history.sa.gov.au.

 

I recently visited the South Australian Police Historical Society Museum (SAPOL Museum), which has premises within the police barracks complex at Thebarton. Tram tracks built since I last visited the museum two or three years ago stopped me turning right into Gaol Road, so I took a bit of a detour around some parklands on my way to the museum. 

The SAPOL museum is a registered museum in the CMP and is wanting to work towards accreditation, so we met to have a look at what the museum has been doing in the last couple of years and to give some thought to what areas the museum needs to focus on to move towards accreditation. Thanks Tony and Geoff for having this conversation with me – we identified some areas that need focus and also some other areas of museum management/practice that the museum has made great progress with and that are real positives in thinking about accreditation. 

An incredible amount of work has been done on the extensive archives the group holds. The museum has a number of licences for the MOSAIC database program and a significant group of volunteers who are learning to use the program. Another group of volunteers is sorting through the archives and arranging disposal of irrelevant and duplicate items – what’s left will be a much ‘tighter’ archive – and it will fit easily into the museums new, grant funded compactus. 

Another big project that has been taken on is rationalising the collection of hundreds and hundreds of police uniform items, down to about one third the original number and moving them from racks to archival boxes. Both these projects have cleared up a lot of space and improved collection management. SAPOL Museum is certainly the place to go for South Australian police history and records.

I spent some time with members of the Dublin History group and the Mallala Museum today. Dublin History Group is about to get the lease on the local Institute building and we met to have a chat about using the building as a combined research/collection storage/small display space.

Great to see a small group taking on such a project and getting excited about such things as writing a collection policy! The group will need one, as having dedicated premises tends to prompt people to want to donate items to community collections. Some hard decisions will be coming up for the group about what they want to collect and have the capacity to collect and care for.

Thanks Mallala Museum for coming along to the meeting too to share some thoughts on collection policy, as the two districts have some crossover.

I recently visited the South Australian Police Historical Society Museum (SAPOL Museum), which has premises within the police barracks complex at Thebarton. Tram tracks built since I last visited the museum two or three years ago stopped me turning right into Gaol Road, so I took a bit of a detour around some parklands on my way to the museum. 

The SAPOL museum is a registered museum in the CMP and is wanting to work towards accreditation, so we met to have a look at what the museum has been doing in the last couple of years and to give some thought to what areas the museum needs to focus on to move towards accreditation. Thanks Tony and Geoff for having this conversation with me – we identified some areas that need focus and also some other areas of museum management/practice that the museum has made great progress with and that are real positives in thinking about accreditation. 

An incredible amount of work has been done on the extensive archives the group holds. The museum has a number of licences for the MOSAIC database program and a significant group of volunteers who are learning to use the program. Another group of volunteers is sorting through the archives and arranging disposal of irrelevant and duplicate items – what’s left will be a much ‘tighter’ archive – and it will fit easily into the museums new, grant funded compactus. 

Another big project that has been taken on is rationalising the collection of hundreds and hundreds of police uniform items, down to about one third the original number and moving them from racks to archival boxes. Both these projects have cleared up a lot of space and improved collection management. SAPOL Museum is certainly the place to go for South Australian police history and records.