Culture of Sydney
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The culture of Sydney, Australia is diverse and multicultural. Many of the individual cultures that make up the Sydney mosaic are centred on the ethnic, linguistic and religious communities formed by waves of immigration. (See History of Sydney.) In addition, as a major Australian city, Sydney boasts a full roster of musical, theatrical and artistic activity.
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[edit] Music
The Sydney Symphony is internationally noted and frequently performs at the Sydney Opera House. The Sydney Dance Company under the leadership of Graeme Murphy during the late 20th century has also gained acclaim. Opera Australia has its headquarters in Sydney, whilst the Australian Ballet locates its main corporate offices in Melbourne. Jazz and new music (such as Sydney-based The Necks) found a home in places like "The Basement" and the now defunct Harbourside Brasserie.
Many well-known Australian rock bands have had their genesis in Sydney, including Midnight Oil, The Easybeats, AC/DC, Rose Tattoo, The Vines & INXS, punk rock groups such as Radio Birdman and The Celibate Rifles, indie rockers The Clouds and The Crystal Set, to electronic music pioneers Severed Heads, Single Gun Theory, The Lab, Itch-E and Scratch-E and local favourites Sneaky Sound System. Other notable bands to appear from the Sydney music scene are Angelspit and Wolfmother.
Many popular songs are inspired by Sydney, including "Sydney Town" by The Mexican Spitfires, "From St. Kilda to Kings Cross" and many others by Paul Kelly, "Summer Hill Road" by The Executives, "Reckless" by Australian Crawl and John Kennedy's "Love Gone Wrong", "My Fair Lady" by David Mire
Sydney is famous for its alternative rock scene, and is credited as the original home of the now national alternative rock festival the Big Day Out, which began in Sydney in 1992 featuring local bands such as You Am I and The Clouds and international super groups like Nirvana.
[edit] Performing arts
The Sydney Theatre Company boasts a regular roster of local plays, such as noted playwright David Williamson, classics and international playwrights. From the 1940s through to the 1970s the Sydney Push, an intellectual subculture of authors and activists questioning of authority grew, its members included Germaine Greer.
Sydney has several independent theatres for productions throughout the city centre including the Capitol Theatre(Est.1928, 2000 seats), the Lyric Theatre (2000 seats), the Theatre Royal (Est. 1827, 1200 seats) and the State Theatre (Est.1929, 2000 seats but stage not big enough for large productions).
Despite this, the theatrical community has faced a decline in recent years following the demolition of Her Majesty's and the Regent Theatres in the 1970s-80s. Resulting in the demand for more venues and appropriate stages for productions. This has forced and diverted many international productions to make their premieres in Melbourne who has surpassed Sydney due to the amount of support it receives from the Victorian Government. In NSW however, the government has not reciprocated or shown much interest in the Theatrical arts, causing outcries from the Sydney theatrical community.
[edit] Visual arts and museums
Sydney has been home to many visual artists, from the lush pastoralism of Lloyd Rees depictions of Sydney Harbour to Jeffrey Smart's portraits of bleak urban alienation. The Archibald Prize is a noted portraiture prize awarded each year by the Trustees of the Art Gallery of New South Wales located in Sydney.
Sydney has a range of museums including those based on art such as Museum of Contemporary Art, science and technology such as the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Observatory, Sydney Tramway Museum, Australian National Maritime Museum and Australian Museum, and history such as the Museum of Sydney.
Graffitti and street art are quite common in Sydney. The Newtown area has many examples of murals and other street art.
[edit] Film
Sydney is Australia’s centre for commercial film and media. Many of the landmarks in Sydney have been referenced, shown and the setting for countless films and television programs. Sydney also has a wide amount of references to films that have been set in the city, including Finding Nemo, which was set in Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour). The city was used as downtown Angel Grove in 20th Century Fox's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995). The Matrix was also filmed in Sydney.
The international Sydney Film Festival takes place each year in June at various venues in the CBD.
[edit] Literature and Libraries
The largest library in Sydney is the State Library of New South Wales. Most local government areas within Sydney have local libraries including the City of Sydney Library with eight local branches, the Bankstown City Library[1], the Max Webber Library in Blacktown and many others.
[edit] Children's entertainment
A large portion of Australia's children's entertainment originates in Sydney including highly successful musical groups The Wiggles and Hi-5 and television programs Play School, Bananas in Pyjamas, Saturday Disney, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, Mister Squiggle and many others.
[edit] Tourism, nightlife and festivals
Sydney is a major tourism hub, with a reported 21.1 million tourists visited the city in 2004. Many of the tourist attractions are scattered all over the city, the most famous and visited would be the Sydney Opera House, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, an architectural triumph, and one of the most famous bridges constructed, which opened in 1932. Other attractions include Royal Botanical Gardens, Luna Park and Sydney Tower.
Sydney has a colourful nightlife scene, with jazz and rock venues and nightclubs which can be found across the city, from Darling Harbour, Circular Quay, Kings Cross and Oxford Street. Kings Cross is also the city's Red Light District. There are huge celebrations for New Years Eve in Sydney including a world famous fireworks display that features the Harbour Bridge. There are similar celebrations for Australia Day.
Sydney is also a host to many different festivals including the Sydney Festival, a celebration of free performances throughout January; the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (see below); the Sydney Royal Easter Show, which unites rural and urban communities together in 1 annual event at Homebush; the Sydney Film Festival and many other smaller festivals such as Tropfest.
There are also several music festivals including Big Day Out, Homebake and The Great Escape
[edit] Sport
Sport is an important part of the culture in Sydney. For more information go to Sport in Sydney or Sport in New South Wales.
[edit] Sydney communities and subcultures
[edit] Ethnic communities
Examples of ethnic communities in Sydney include;
- Ashfield (Chinese (especially Shanghainese) (See Little Shanghai)
- Auburn (Turkish/Hazaras)
- Bankstown (Lebanese/Vietnamese)
- Blacktown (and surroundings - Filipino)
- Bondi (Jewish)
- Cabramatta (predominantly Vietnamese, but also Lao and Han Chinese)
- Chatswood (Hong Kong Chinese)
- Earlwood/Brighton-Le-Sands (Greek)
- Eastwood (Korean, Mainland Chinese; Cantonese and Mandarin dialects.)
- Fairfield, New South Wales Sydney (Many cultures such as Assyrian, Yugoslavs, Vietnamese, Italian and Hispanic backgrounds)
- Homebush (Sri Lankan/South Indian)
- Hurstville (Chinese)
- Kingsford (Indonesian)
- Leichhardt (Italian)
- Liverpool (Serbs)
- Manly (Danes, Norwegians and Swedes)
- Mount Kuring-gai (Polish)
- Northbridge (Japanese)
- Petersham (Portuguese)
- St Ives (South African/Jewish)
- Strathfield (Shanghainese/Korean)
- Waverley (Russians)
- Willoughby (Armenian)
While such ethnic groupings exist, these are only general representations of the relative distribution of ethnic groups in Sydney. So, for example, while there are many Asians in Eastwood, the majority of the population is still of a European background. Areas with a large proportion of people born overseas and with non-English speaking backgrounds include Auburn, Fairfield, Liverpool, and Bankstown. Generally Western European and North American born people have settled around the Lower North Shore and eastern suburbs, Middle Eastern people around the Lakemba-Auburn region, Indo-Chinese in the south-western suburbs, South Asians around Parramatta and the south east, and North East Asians in major nodes such as Hurstville, Burwood, Strathfield, Chatswood, Eastwood, Campsie and Haymarket.
Apart from English, the 30 most widely spoken languages in Sydney are: (2004)[citation needed]
- Arabic
- Cantonese
- Greek
- Italian
- Vietnamese
- Mandarin
- Spanish
- Tagalog
- Korean
- Hindi
- Croatian
- Macedonian
- Serbian
- Turkish
- Indonesian
- Maltese
- German
- Polish
- Assyrian
- Russian
- French
- Persian
- Tamil
- Portuguese
- Samoan
- Japanese
- Khmer
- Hungarian
- Armenian
- Bengali
All languages above have over 5000 speakers in the city; Arabic and Cantonese both have over 150,000 speakers.
[edit] The gay & lesbian community
Sydney is famous for its gay community, centred on Oxford Street, and the annual Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. The Sydney lesbian community, though still active around oxford street, has recently begun to migrate towards Newtown and Enmore. Though Sydney does not have any full time lesbian bar, the night life centres around girls nights such as Velvet Wednesdays at The Bank Hotel, Newtown and Snatch & Grab Thursdays at Phoenix Nightclub, Oxford Street Darlinghurst. Popular Monthly girls nights include Girl Thing at Qbar, Luscious at the Flinders Hotel and Moist at Arq. There are two magazines and one website available in Sydney with detailed information on the Sydney's lesbian community and nightlife. LOTL and Cherry magazines are free, monthly, Australia wide, publications which can be found around Oxford Street, Glebe and Newtown. The Sapphic Sydney website is a relatively new resource which details events and community groups as well as featuring a local business directory.
[edit] References
Sapphic Sydney - The Lesbian Guide to Sydney
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