Moomba Parade 2022

On Monday 14th March, Sanggar Lestari participated in the Moomba Parade with Victoria’s Indonesian community. This was the first Moomba Parade held since pre-COVID times in 2019 and the excitement in the air on the day was palpable! The weather was also celebrating; it was a lovely 28 degrees with clear blue skies – perfect for the parade!

Representing Sanggar Lestari today were Tika, Sally, Rani, Laura, Okta and Litani. Everyone walking with the Indonesian community were representing the diverse cultures of Indonesia – from Bali and Java, to Sumatra and Maluku, everyone was dressed is traditional costumes, including Ondel-Ondel! Sanggar Lestari were wearing traditional batik tenun and representing Ambon and Maluku :)

It was an early start for the Lestari team; we all met at Okta’s place in the Docklands between 6 – 6:30am. With McDonald’s for breakfast and Mama Ning helping with our hair and costumes, we managed to get all five of us ready by 9.30am! After photos (of course) and deciding which TikTok dance to do later on, we jumped into an Uber and made it to the meeting point at Melbourne Grammar with 15 minutes to spare before we needed to all get into our places for the parade – hooray! Our section of the parade included a range of different groups – from the Maltese community with band instruments, to cheerleaders and Bollywood dancers. It was very loud when we were all lining up in the underground carpark ready to go, but everyone was excited to start! We all walked out around to one end of Birdwood Ave and met up with other sections of the parade. Being outside and in our positions, we could see the hundreds of performers on either side of the Indonesian community group… there was even a gigantic popcorn float. Whilst waiting for the parade to start, we filmed our TikTok for the day, chatted to the guys underneath the Ondel-Ondel, and watched the Parade staff run up and down getting everyone organised. 

Once the parade started, we were in dance mode! We picked up the beat of the drums from a few rows up and walked forward doing two moves from a Tarian Taume Anuku, a NTT dance. It was wonderful to look out at the crowd as we made our way down Birdwood Ave, and wave to the children and TV cameras. After 40 minutes or so, we reached the end of the parade – after practicing and spending hours getting ready and waiting in our line for the parade to start, the parade walk itself felt so quick!

After having a chat with others from the Parade, saying hi to Consul General Pak Kuncoro Waseso and his wife, and picking up our lunchboxes, we headed back to Okta’s place to rest and eat our warm meal of rice, chicken, eggplant and tempe :) Enak sekali!