Reset yourself for 2022
The Starlight Festival has been hosted in the Northern Rivers for more than 25 years, and in 2022 organisers have a wonderful program awaiting you.
The event is a wellbeing market where you can enjoy access to a community of practitioners offering healing, readings, personal development, massage and more.
You can also find your perfect crystal, sample the latest wellness products or delight in nourishing vegan food from the cafe.
There is an expansive program of events included with entry, staged across five sacred spaces – all of these have been created so you can experience awakening workshops from a community of renowned facilitators from the Byron Shire and beyond.
This year, reconnect using the power of sacred sound, relax with live sound healing; release and connect with chant and mantra, then bliss out in a restorative sound-bath.
There is also a huge yoga presence at Starlight – energise in the yoga space with a flow yoga class or go deep with Yin and yoga nidra.
You can immerse yourself in a workshop, learn to play a singing bowl, discover your voice, or try palm reading.
Whatever your worldview, you can find something to interest, intrigue, and tantalise you – the annual Starlight Festival is the perfect opportunity to ignite your spirit, nourish your soul and celebrate conscious living among like-minded individuals. This year’s event features over 100 workshops, classes and talks.
Speakers at the event include Yemi Penn who is a documentary producer, TEDx Speaker and engineer. Her life’s mission is to raise the vibration of acknowledging our trauma. Yemi is a fearless business woman and passionate thought leader on ‘creating your own memo’, meaning you get to write the script of your life. She is a serial entrepreneur with a common thread of transformation across her businesses, whether it be transforming Sydney’s rail network as an engineer, to transforming physical health in her F45 gym, or shifting the perspective of our minds as she supports people in creating a life that they want and deserve. More recently Yemi has added ‘documentary producer’ to her repertoire as she shifts her core life’s purpose to raising the vibration of acknowledging and healing our individual, and therefore collective, trauma. Simply put? She engineers powerful people.
Another TEDX speaker, teacher and facilitator is Miroslav Petrovic. Petrovic has worked with thousands of people across the planet supporting them to bring their message to the world. He specialises in cutting edge training fusing the mystical with embodied speaking to create unparalleled connection. He is the founder of the Enlivened Speaking Institute where he teaches speakers how to go beyond didactic delivery to deliver their message in a powerful, embodied way that is enlivening and engaging for audiences. Additionally he has supported companies such as Lululemon Athletica and Park Hyatt Hotel with their workplace culture. In 2019 Miroslav completed an academic thesis with Monash University on the role of embodied teaching and learning for creating more engagement within teaching dynamics.
Peter Wallman is a local, having moved from a corporate life in Sydney – he is an expert on passion, purpose, and authenticity, and through the Passion Maps organisation he has worked with over 5,000 people in 20 countries. Unlike other approaches, Peter believes that passion is fundamentally the energy that brings us alive and can be mapped with extraordinary results. He is the author of the bestselling book The Wisdom of Passion.
The Starlight Festival was created by Raym Richards in the Byron Surf club over 25 years ago and is now run by his daughter, Rosie Richards. Rosie has created a space of conscious living, awakening and sharing of knowledge. ‘Starlight Festival offers you a chance to sample a wide range of transformative experiences in one place’ says Rosie. ‘Experiences offered by devoted practitioners that aren’t available in our daily lives. It’s a chance for people to connect and treat themselves by participating and soaking up the knowledge that this incredible weekend has to offer.’
Starlight Festival runs 6–9 January, Bangalow A&I Hall.
$30 admission. Four Day pass $75. Locals two-for-one days: Thursday 6 and Friday 7 January. Tickets online or at the door. www.starlightfestival.com.au.
Cunning Stunts are golden at the Nudge
The Cunning Stunts are really stoked to be celebrating the 50th edition of the Nudge Nudge Wink Wink & CURIOUS event at the The Billinudgel Hotel this weekend.
The crew are very proud that through their 50 conscious FUNdraising events at the Billinudgel Hotel, they have donated $331,471 to 29 local charities since December 2015.
But, the Billi’s Nudge Nudge Wink Wink is not just about helping charities, it’s also most definitely about getting your groove on and having fun. Delivering golden tunes and smooth moves to the dance floor for this special celebration are much loved DJs, Sarah Sutton (Lady S) and Laura Peck (Miss L) who are opening the event; residents Dale Stephen and Lord Sut will sustain the sizzle and make you sweat sparkles; and Stephen Allkins will be closing (for the first time ever).
Stellar moments of surprise will occur throughout this event, including a special version of our legendary raffle – featuring three of the most popular local sponsor prizes making a huge value comeback. Buckets will be circulating, and extra donation opportunities will abound. Cash notes, gold coins and wearing something gold are all welcome.
In line with all conscious activities Cunning Stunts represent, a significant percentage of its profits are donated to local charities.
Come along for a wink and a nudge this Saturday, 8 January from 4pm at The Billinudgel Hotel. Tickets from cunningstunts.com.au.
Authentic and occasionally nostalgic
Born by the sea in Northern NSW, Ben Whiting started writing songs and formed his first band at age 12. Unlike most kids, BW was touring as an early teen and being mentored by Buzz Bidstrup, experiencing and creating a career that has seen him share stages alongside Tash Sultana, Ash Grunwald and Katy Perry, just to name a few, Whiting has played to festival crowds from Les Escales (France) to National Folk Fest (Australia), turning his musings into songs concerning topics of everyday life, nostalgia, memories and the future. Ben’s harmonies and lyrics resonate with those who stumble across him.
This Byron Bay native’s authentic musings on love and life have created a fresh take on indie folk, with a distinctive crowd-pleasing rock edge honed on the streets of Melbourne – an edge always underscored by his sweet vocals and singular guitar styles.
Friday 7 January from 6pm at the Ballina RSL.
What’s on Kitty’s bucket list
Kitty Flanagan makes her return to the Brunswick Picture House stage! A loose, informal show where Kitty workshops new material. New ideas, old ideas, your suggestions — they all go in the bucket and get pulled out one at a time. Good luck everyone!
Shows every night this week 4–9 January at 6.30pm. Tickets from brunswickpicturehouse.com
Bangalow Film Festival is all highlights
Like a delicious progressive dinner, the Bangalow Film Festival will travel to three venues at the end of January with an exciting individual program curated for each venue – no two events will be the same – it’s an ongoing delight of highlights.
One of those highlights, at the Lismore event, is The Hidden Life of Trees (PG) on Thursday 20 January. This film is in German with English subtitles.
When Peter Wohlleben published his book The Hidden Life of Trees in 2015, he stormed all the bestseller charts overnight: no-one had ever written about the German woods like the forester from the parish of Wershofen before. Peter Wohlleben opened our eyes to the hidden world of the forest and the ‘Wood Wide Web’.
Wohlleben tells us, in an entertaining and enlightening fashion, about the solidarity and cohesion of the trees and strikes a chord with his ever-growing community of readers as he brings us closer to these astounding living entities in guided tours of the woods. Wohlleben travels to Sweden to see the oldest tree in the world; he visits businesses in Vancouver that are looking for a new approach to how to treat the woods; he sides with the demonstrators in the Hambacher Forst – because he knows that we humans can only survive if the woods are healthy.
Director Jörg Adolph combines the exciting portrait of a man who understands the language of trees with breathtaking nature footage from the world of forests to create a documentary which is just as entertaining as it is fascinating.
Another highlight is the regional premiere of Anonymous Club (MA15+) at the Regent Cinema in Murwillumbah, on Friday 28 January.
With unprecedented, intimate access to the private life of Australian singer, songwriter and musician, Courtney Barnett, this innovative and stylised 16mm feature documentary follows a paradoxically introverted performer and anti-influencer, who, at the height of success, is ready to walk away.
Recording her innermost thoughts on a dictaphone over a period of three years, Courtney begins her slow acceptance of filmmaker Danny Cohen’s camera. This unique filming process mirrors Courtney’s gradual search for purpose and emergence as a woman who is finally and firmly in control.
Another highlight at the home of the Festival in Bangalow, is a new addition for 2022 – the brand new Festival Hub. The Hub is a perfect place to relax before the screenings, at the Bangalow Showgrounds, featuring some of the finest local food trucks, as well as pop-up bars and DJs.
The Hub is open each night from 5pm to 8pm.
The Festival will be at the Showgrounds and the A&I Hall in Bangalow, January 13–19; at the Star Court Theatre, Lismore, January 20–22; and at the Regent Theatre, Murwillumbah, January 27–29.
For more information or ticket enquiries, visit: bangalowfilmfestival.com.au.
A mash-up of music, visual art and dance
LiQuidelic is a live performance art project spawned from the collaboration of three highly-skilled artists from different disciplines: music, visual art and dance.
LiQuidelic showcases the vibrant spark that occurs when these three complimentary mediums collide. A visually stunning analogue liquid light projection show cascades over choreographed dance pieces, with a soundtrack of hybrid live/produced original music. The result is a finely rehearsed multi-media performance in which three elements become a single piece.
Members Yao Mikami and Karen Minami infuse this modern performance with inspiration from their Japanese cultural heritage, allowing a synergy of old and new, East and West, sight, sound and movement to intertwine on stage.
Thursday 13 January, 7pm at the Byron Theatre. For more info visit: byroncentre.com.au
