Cultural

THE Sumnation World Cultural Festival will be scrapped next year because the City of Greater Dandenong is seeking to fund what it calls ‘authentic cultural festivals’.
The Springvale Neighbourhood House, which organises the annual cultural festival, this week said it could not understand what the council meant by an ‘authentic’ festival.
Treasurer Wilfredo Zelada said Sumnation was representative of a variety of cultures with hundreds of different artists and performers entertaining crowds of more than 10,000 people.
But the group’s funding request for a total of $55,000 was slashed by the City of Greater Dandenong’s festival grants panel to $30,000 for the 2006-07 financial year.
Mr Zelada confirmed that the festival would not run due to the funding cuts.
“The reality is the council is trying to get rid of festival funding,” he said.
“They are now trying to find what they call ‘authentic cultural festivals’.
“But we are still trying to find what they mean, because we surely are an authentic festival.”
City mayor Peter Brown told Star the decision was ‘one made by 10 councillors’.
Cr Brown said the council was trying to cut ‘substantial’ festival funding.
“Sumnation has had a substantial escalation in cost and the council is trying to reduce festival costs,” he said.
“The decision was not to overspend money in certain areas (this year).” – Shaun Inguanzo