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	Descendance perform at the EPCOT (Experimental Protocol Community of Tomorrow) Centre, Florida Disneyworld

Australian Indigenous Dance and the Community of Tomorrow

Descendance Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Dance Theatre has just completed 7 successful weeks at Disneyworld in Florida at the Epcot Centre (experimental protocol community of tomorrow) where it helped Australia become the most popular destination site for the annual six week food and wine festival, and won best show for 2004 from the 40 countries represented.

Disneyworld is made up of four huge parks 1.Magic Kingdom 2.MGM Studios 3.

Animal Kingdom and Epcot, together they make the size of a major city.
Epcot is like a world village where the worlds leading countries have permanent set ups with beautiful replicas of their architecture promoting their cultures in dance, music, food, & tourism. Australia are only there for six weeks of the year, but after the runaway success of Descendance's performances and Southcorp Wines and food at the Australia Village, Disney now wants the Aussies big time on a more permanent basis.

On our time off we explored the theme parks and saw if we were brave enough to get on some of the high tech rides , most of the dancers retired from the rides after The Mission Space experience, a virtual space experience where you are hit with incredible G Forces and experience going from 0 to 6000 mph in 60 seconds, but Ronnie Guivarra (Descendance Singer) and myself continued to explore our inner child, but we almost met our maker after The Rock n Roll Rollercoaster and Splash Mountain rides not for the faint hearted.

Even though we enjoyed our Disney Experience, the highlight of the Florida tour was our exchanges and performances with the Seminole Indian Tribe at their reservation in South Florida, the tribe had never seen an Aboriginal show before, they were so taken by our performances they put us up at their reservation and treated us like royalty.

The Seminole Indians were the only tribe never to succumb to the American Government, they never gave up the fight to keep their customs and land, and never signed any treaties , today they have their own Casinos, Airport, Schools, Zoo, Museum and land. Don't be fooled that the Seminoles have fallen into white mans material world, for this is not the case, the money is spent wisely and has only made them stronger and more organized surviving in the white mans complex world. Today their customs are as strong as ever, their Green Corn Celebration goes for four days, no technology is allowed on site for the duration of the festival, the Seminoles celebrate with song, dance, law and traditional customs, this helps them stay on their path to spiritual enlightenment and ensures the survival of their culture.

Descendance performed for the elders of their tribe and gave them Aboriginal gifts for their kindness and respect they showed towards us.
The Seminole Indians are a good lesson to Aboriginal Australia; this is where we can be in the future.

On our days off I drove the boys to the famous South Beach in Miami which was about 300 miles from Disneyworld, left hand drive cars and right hand drive roads made the journey hilarious and adventurous for us, the funniest incident came when we had just finished a show at an Native American site, some of the boys still had ochre on their faces and we were driving on the wrong side of the road, a sheriff just looked at us once with astonishment and did not even want to go there. Miami was a blast, the playground of the rich and famous, and plastic surgery, but does not match our best Aussie beaches.

Next on the Agenda for Descendance are a tour of LA (USA) for Australia Week, and 10 stadium size performances at Sydney Stadium (The Dome) both in January.

2004 has been an amazing year for us , 5 overseas tours , Winner of The World Culture Open, the Cultural Olympics in Seoul, Winner of The Brolga Award in tourism, and now Winner best show at Epcot global village in Disneyworld.

Also a special mention to the Descendance indigenous models that shined at The Deadly Awards at the Sydney Opera House in October, it was a great start for our indigenous model project.

Any dancers wishing to join to Descendance and begin work and training in Alice Springs should email Jose Calarco at descend@bigpond.com or call 0411 337136 and join the waiting list.

Any publications who need high resolution images of the Florida Tour just email us. Jose Calarco director Descendance www.descendance.com.au

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