Ballarat has hopped into the Year of the Rabbit in a tremendous fashion, with a new Sovereign Hill program celebrating Chinese cultural contributions to the goldfields.
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The 2023 Lunar New Year summer series has seen Sovereign Hill's main strip transformed with Chinese flair with Dragon and Lion parades, cultural dancing, Chinese food and more.
Sovereign Hill deputy chief executive Katrina Nitschke said the program was designed to embrace the oft-untold place Chinese miners had on Ballarat's goldfield.
"As a museum we have a really significant collection of Chinese cultural material, we have the oldest Chinese dragon in Australia and the third oldest in the world. One of the most significant Chinese processional lions in the world," she said.
"We have all of this material, because of the contribution of the Chinese to the goldfields.
"They are group which came around the world as so many other people did to find a new way of living, build their wealth and prosperity and support their families.
"They came to Australia during the Gold Rush, left their mark and continued to have a real impact on our society."
Highlights from the summer program include a Lunar New Year banquet created in partnership with the Peter Rowland Group, as well as Lunar New Year-inspired cocktails and Chinese street food market stalls.
Cultural performances including ribbon dancing, Tai Chi and fan dancing has also been on display, with help from the Chinese Cultural Society.
Sovereign Hill's Main Strip will also be lit up with colours, as Chinese dragon and lion parades will dance up and down the street at 11am, 1pm and 3pm each day.
Face painting, arts and craft workshops will also be available for children to enjoy.
Ms Nitschke said the pomp and ceremony was all part of bringing the city's Chinese history alive in an immersive story-telling experience.
"I think that is one of the things we really celebrate at Sovereign Hill, is the human side of things, the human scale the human connectivity. This ability to get up close.
"We pride ourselves in being one of the most immersive museum experiences in the country," she said.
"You come here and you are surrounded by the sights, the sounds and the smells. You can feel the ground beneath your feet, you can hear off in the distance the sound of gunfire and warring.
"That sense of being part of what it would have been like. If you just take your mind back to when these Chinese processions were operating in the 19th century, it would have been the most amazing kind of experience. You haven't seen colour pictures, you don't have TV.
"It was not like you could have jumped onto YouTube and watched it. It was just an amazing explosion of sensory experience."
Admission is from 10am - 5pm and tickets start from $49 for an adult, $29 for a child and $129 for a family of 6 (2 adults, 4 children) with some experiences and events booked separately.
Explore the full Sovereign Hill summer series program at: https://summer.sovereignhill.com.au.
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