The Sunset Fair 2011 season was launched on Friday, August 26th with a fun-filled evening of live music, circus entertainers, a movie, great food and the best-yet array of handicraft stalls.
A huge Sunset Fair balloon floated over the site as revellers arrived and a sinking sun cast vivid colours across the sky at Kristu Rei, one of Dili’s most beautiful beaches, which is dominated by the famous statue of Jesus Christ on the hilltop.
The opening ceremony was conducted by Mr Gil Alves, the Minister of Tourism, Commerce and Industry, who praised the dozens of participating stallholders for the quality and variety of the local handicrafts and other products on sale at the fair.
The Sunset Fair Patron, Kirsty Sword Gusmao, also said a few words of welcome to the audience, which included her own family; the three boys are great fans of the popular Bouncy Castle
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| Kirsty Sword Gusmao signs in |
Innovations at this year’s Sunset Fair include a purpose-built stage for the weekly live music performances and a special “mikrolet” minibus shuttle service that will ferry fairgoers every evening throughout the season between Kristu Rei and Bidau Sant’Ana (near Lita Store) for a nominal return fare of 20c.
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| Music from "5 De Oriente" - the first band to use the new Sunset Fair stage |
Also new to this year’s Sunset Fair are movie screenings to be offered every week by Cinema Lorosa’e. The opening night movie, “The Owls of Ga’Hoole” had been dubbed into one of the local languages, Tetum, by volunteer actors based in Melbourne
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| The corn's a-poppin' at Cinema Lorosa'e |
Organisers were especially pleased to welcome a delegation from the Sunset Fair’s sister organisation, the famous Mindil Beach Markets of Darwin, Australia. Courtesy of Airnorth’s sponsorship, a group of four Mindil representatives travelled over to assist with the continuing process of Sunset Fair Association development. Circus performers Fairy Jill and Dragonfly Dan strutted around the site on stilts, made balloon animals for the children and finished the evening with a spectacular fire-twirling and hula hoop show.
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| Only at Sunset Fair: Dragonfly Dan and Fairy Jill join a Timorese croc from Anima Audian |
The Sunset Fair will run every Friday from 5pm thoughout the dry season. Later this year there will be a number of specially-themed cultural evenings sponsored by some of the various embassies based in Dili. On Friday, September 9th, Sunset Fair will be celebrating Brazil - watch this space for news on that and the welcome we'll be offering to the Tour de Timor cyclists.
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| Welcome to a new stallholder this season: Belle Kria Women's Sewing Group. They make lovely fabric books for very small children, and can pretty much sew anything else you want, too. bellekria@hotmail.com for all your sewing needs. |
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Arte Moris's lovely t-shirts. Wear Timorese fine art! They are high quality and wash really well, too. |
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| Alola Foundation's multilingual alphabet cards. |
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| Back again! Our beloved basket ladies of Maubara |
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| Dili Beach Hotel. Good food, icy cold beer |
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| Diak print shop. Get your custom-made t-shirts here or buy one of the cool ready-made designs. |
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| Kor Timor. Handmade paper, gorgeous packaging and lush coconut oils and soaps. |
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Boy Clemens' auntie wishes he was here. He is the composer of the Sunset Fair anthem, "Areia Branca". |
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| Gorgeous Fairy Jill One of the guest entertainers from Darwin's Mindil Beach Markets |
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| Fairy Jill and Dragonfly Dan practice the gentle art of balloon-bending - a big hit with the Timorese kiddies |
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Mr and Mrs Tony Jape with sister Pamela take a well-earned break from preparations to open the Timor Plaza, Timor-Leste's fabulous new shopping mall |
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| The Bouncy Castle. Mother's little helper. |
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| Balloon advertising - a first for Timor-Leste, courtesy of Sunset Fair site management company Camara |
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| You can never own too many tais. These are from Haburas Cultura |
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| Dan and Jill creating animals from balloons |
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| "Can you tell what it is yet?" |
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| A typical Sunset Fair scene - a fairy and a dragonfly meet a crocodile and a monkey |
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| Jill and Dan groove to "5 de Oriente" - on stilts |
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| Classic magic sunset moment |
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| Fine handicrafts from Isabel dos Santos |
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| A religious theme - Pramidita's handicrafts |
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| Lovely creativity in straw from Virgilia Serao |
To keep up with all of the news and weekly movie and music programmes, follow the new Sunset Fair Facebook page - click “like” on the box at the side of this screen and you will receive regular bulletins in your FB newsfeed.
Looking forward to seeing you all every Friday night - TGIF!
