WEBVTT

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<v Announcer>And now it's my great pleasure</v>

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to introduce Stephen Page.

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(audience clapping)

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<v ->(laughing) Thanks.</v>

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(audience clapping)

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Thank you.

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(audience clapping)

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(Stephen chuckles)

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(audience clapping)

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Oh, so kind of you.

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I'm just surprised by the number of people

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that wanted to come out and hear me talk, so.

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And thank you all for coming.

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And my sister, Jude, thank you for that beautiful welcome.

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And that story on land and country

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and identity and belonging,

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all those themes and those words are, you know,

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a big part of me and my life and my clans

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and the family of Bangarra and my immediate family.

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But it's just so embedded into us as mob

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and our kinship system.

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Bree, thanks for having me

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and all the staff over there when they rung and said,

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"Do you wanna come and do a keynote speaking?"

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I was like, "Where, the portrait gallery,

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what has that got to do with me?"

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And then as we got to talk a little bit more, you know,

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that whole, you know,

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the portrait that sits within our storytelling,

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like I said before in our kinship system,

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is a huge part of our lives, you know?

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And so today I've called this clanship

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because (sighs) I've always moved as a clan

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and I've always moved as a mob

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in everything I've done

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from my immediate family

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growing up right through to

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me leading Bangarra dance theatre

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ending at the end of last year.

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I have a little, I'm not good with gadgets,

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but I thought I'd select a series of images,

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some personal, some family,

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some Bangarra images that might help me

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sort of navigate and lead,

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you know, my journey so far

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as an artist, as a storyteller,

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as a curator of stories,

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as a carer of stories,

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director,

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choreographer,

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all those things.

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Yeah....

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I was just lucky in my life to

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have good people around me.

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And so I'm gonna start.

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I might just let us go through this

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because we do have some images of people

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who have passed away in this.

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Before I go on with this image,

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I'm a freshwater saltwater man.

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As we said before, my father's country

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is just down in Southeast of,

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outside of Brisbane, a place under Yugambeh Nation.

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There's five clans.

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And one of those small clans is the Mununjali clan.

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And my father was freshwater.

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And if you keep following the Logan River

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out to the mouth between North Stradbroke Island

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and South Stradbroke Island.

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that's all that Quandamooka Nation,

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right in the middle there between those big sandbars

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and Morton Bay Island

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between Brisbane and North Stradbroke

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which they call Minjerribah.

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And that's all the Nunukul mob.

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And that's my mum's country.

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And it wasn't until many, many, many many years later

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that mum and dad,

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freshwater and saltwater,

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worked out their little connection

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in their little mapping and kinship system.

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And they were actually the right skin to marry.

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And yeah, they had 12 kids, six boys, six girls.

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I'm right down the end.

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Number 10.

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And this is an image of my granny.

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We used to call her granny Polo and Fogarty.

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And she had my father,

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eight children.

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She had my father at the age of 55, 54, 55.

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And he was the last of the eight children.

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And when I think, the other day, I was going,

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wow, she was born in 18,

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around 1879, 1880.

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And dad was born in 1931.

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And she had my father

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under one of my old ghost gum trees down at Tamrookum,

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just outside of Beaudesert, down at a river.

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And it wasn't, well, my father passed

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that David and I went back

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and we actually went to that river bed

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and saw his birthing place.

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I don't remember her a lot.

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I remember, I was five when she passed away.

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And she's in this house where my dad's older sister owned.

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And I do remember

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them all in the room when she passed.

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And there was a lot of language being spoken.

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That was the first time I heard fluid language

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of my dad's language being spoken.

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And it was in that context of, sorry business.

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And it stayed with me as a five-year-old,

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you think, someone said to me, "What's the earliest thing?"

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And I always remember that sacred gathering in the room

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and just this fluent language talking over each other.

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This is a painting of,

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I'm going on the women's side here,

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the matriarchal side of my father's mother

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and my mother's mother.

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And this is Granny Martha Day.

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She married an Irishman.

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And all my Black brothers and sisters say

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that's why I got the fairest skin.

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And she also had eight kids

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and mom was the second,

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the second youngest.

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She passed away when my mom was 15.

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Her father passed away when she was 14.

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So she was brought up by her brothers.

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Her mother,

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my great,

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sorry, my great-grandmother,

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but my great-great-grandmother was the first recorded

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of how we were able to trace back to her side

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was through some journal document

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that was in the Brisbane Times and the paper,

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and Juno was her name.

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And she was a young child

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and a survivor of one of the biggest massacres

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they had there on Moreton Bay Island.

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And that's how I knew of my great-great-grandmother

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who moved from the island,

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the Mulganpin Ngugi people.

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And she moved to Stradbroke,

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Minjeribah,

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and was taken in with the clans of the Nunukul.

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So these two women are the mothers

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of my mother and my father.

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And I only recently,

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now after my 32 years at Bangarra

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and me working with mobs all around the country

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and being entrusted with their stories

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from rural to urban to displacement

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to living cultures

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and having this last, especially last four years,

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having this time to myself

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to go back home

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and to rekindle stories.

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And you know, they told me I was going get a ticket

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and wait in line 'cause I've been in the flash city

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for too long.

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I don't get off that easy in the mob

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but it's just really exciting times, you know,

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getting back and learning language and being back home.

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But I can talk a little bit about that later.

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This is my mum and dad, this is probably,

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they used to go to the dance in Brisbane.

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They actually met at a dance, but it was the wrong dance.

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My mum was going to Cloudland.

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He was working on the conveyor belt

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at a pineapple cannery.

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And she was, I don't know, mom must have been about 18,

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17 and I don't know,

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he had a singlet on and drawstring khaki pants and muscles

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and Brylcreem in his hair.
(audience laughing)

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And it could have been emu oil, I don't know.

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But he was checking mum out

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and he asked her out to the dance.

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Little did he know, segregations in those days,

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he went to the boat shed under the bridge

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where all the Blackfellas would go.

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And mum lived down what they call,

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they used to call her an uptown Black.

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They got to live down on the other side of town.

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And because of mum's fair skin,

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she used to get into Cloudland.

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And so they never went on that date

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because he was waiting at the boat shed

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and she was waiting at Cloudland.

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But to me, just the thought of that

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and how they came together

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and then this just sense of upbringing

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and they're both ways of entering into who they were,

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and where they belong, you know.

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But unfortunately, my mom's father just struggled

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for them to identify,

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you know, he used to say they were Indian.

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He used to keep my grandmother

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and my mom and her sisters away

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because it was harder for them to survive in the street

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or where they lived.

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And because they had money

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and it's because it's mixed relations as well.

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So my mother really, really struggled.

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So when she met my father,

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he was a real bushman from the freshwater country.

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That was it.

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All the brothers and sisters were like, wow.

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Like she just left.

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My mother left.

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I think she got pregnant straight away.

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She got shotgun weddings.

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She was gone.

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Like, she went and lived on my dad's country

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for most of our lives, you know, most of their lives.

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And all through when the girls got married,

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sorry, when the girls were all born.

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And that was obviously uprooting for my grandmother,

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granny Polo and my dad,

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you know, they all moved off, removed from their lands

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and you know, all dad's older brothers and first cousins,

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they were all, you know,

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God, I wouldn't say slavery,

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but you know, cheap labour and paid in rations.

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And his older sisters were taken away

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and worked as domestics and didn't come back for years.

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So there was a big age difference

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between him and his brothers and sisters.

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This is a very groovy photo.

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This is later on when we had left living

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in the Beaudesert after the girls were born

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and we moved to,

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1961, we moved to Brisbane

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and we moved to a house commission,

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a suburban house commission house

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because the fourth eldest was a boy, his name was Phillip.

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He had epilepsy and he needed medical help so mom,

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dad wouldn't leave the bush.

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And so we moved

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and we moved down into this house commission house

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where we had deadly curtains.
(audience laughing)

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And dad was...

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Oh, that looks early seventies to me.

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So it must have been after a while, once we moved in.

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And this is later on, like, this is when (chuckles),

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look at how everyone's dressed up.

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This is a lot later on after my brother Phillip died

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and you know, Rusty's,

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Russell's alive there and obviously, David,

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and there's Lawrence, myself and Michael,

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and then there's Jerry, Janice, Rayleen,

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Frances, Donna and Gail.

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Oh, don't get me to name them all again.

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(audience laughing)

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And that was taken in the house

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and they just put a big red curtain up.

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And yeah, David was obsessed with all of us doing this.

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I think it was mum and dad, one of their anniversaries.

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Now I talk about all this because we, in Mt Gravatt,

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you know, I was born in '65,

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primary school, you know, in a suburb,

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a lot of houses, had a lot of big families

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and there's a few mob up the road that lived

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and there was, I think Mrs. Ludgate and her family,

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I think they had 17 kids.

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00:12:28.980 --> 00:12:30.610
So I think we did okay.

267
00:12:30.610 --> 00:12:34.140
But you know, mom and dad had several jobs.

268
00:12:34.140 --> 00:12:35.190
Dad would come down from the bush.

269
00:12:35.190 --> 00:12:37.710
He used to do, you know, worked on the railway,

270
00:12:37.710 --> 00:12:39.630
timber cutter, electric linesmen.

271
00:12:39.630 --> 00:12:41.640
Dad did all jobs, you know,

272
00:12:41.640 --> 00:12:44.970
and then obviously working at the pineapple cannery.

273
00:12:44.970 --> 00:12:47.040
And you know, the girls had to go and work quite young.

274
00:12:47.040 --> 00:12:49.830
You know, the girls were out working 13, 14, shoe factory,

275
00:12:49.830 --> 00:12:50.880
Arnold's biscuits factory.

276
00:12:50.880 --> 00:12:52.050
They used to walk.

277
00:12:52.050 --> 00:12:56.070
And so we always made sure we had food.

278
00:12:56.070 --> 00:12:58.530
Dad made sure that house was there for us.

279
00:12:58.530 --> 00:13:02.400
And most of my time between 1965,

280
00:13:02.400 --> 00:13:05.403
my primary school right through to 1980,

281
00:13:06.870 --> 00:13:08.320
just when I left high school,

282
00:13:09.570 --> 00:13:12.030
you know, was in this house, commission house.

283
00:13:12.030 --> 00:13:15.600
And it was lots of family fights, lots of arguments.

284
00:13:15.600 --> 00:13:18.600
You know, dad made this huge big bed

285
00:13:18.600 --> 00:13:20.880
where all the boys would just sleep in, you know,

286
00:13:20.880 --> 00:13:23.220
from the time you were born to you're like,

287
00:13:23.220 --> 00:13:24.053
I don't know, seven,

288
00:13:24.053 --> 00:13:25.530
then you graduated to the next room

289
00:13:25.530 --> 00:13:28.020
and you'd go in to double bunks, you know.

290
00:13:28.020 --> 00:13:31.103
And anyway, then the girls we'd hurry them,

291
00:13:31.103 --> 00:13:32.370
and find the first fella they found to get married

292
00:13:32.370 --> 00:13:33.390
so they could get out of the house.

293
00:13:33.390 --> 00:13:35.970
No.
(audience laughing)

294
00:13:35.970 --> 00:13:36.803
And then by the end, you know,

295
00:13:36.803 --> 00:13:38.790
it was just us boys living at home with mom

296
00:13:38.790 --> 00:13:41.220
and all the girls were sort of gone.

297
00:13:41.220 --> 00:13:42.090
And I talk about this

298
00:13:42.090 --> 00:13:44.010
because the girls were a big influence on my life

299
00:13:44.010 --> 00:13:46.020
with pop culture, you know.

300
00:13:46.020 --> 00:13:47.220
Dad would go the dump

301
00:13:47.220 --> 00:13:49.980
and that was our favourite time on a Sunday.

302
00:13:49.980 --> 00:13:51.660
Dad would say, "Are you kids ready?"

303
00:13:51.660 --> 00:13:52.650
He had a Bedford truck,

304
00:13:52.650 --> 00:13:54.600
we'd all get in the back of the truck

305
00:13:54.600 --> 00:13:56.820
and he'd go the dump because he'd find TVs,

306
00:13:56.820 --> 00:13:59.280
he'd find things and he's a real handyman.

307
00:13:59.280 --> 00:14:01.200
And he'd come home and he'd fix things up

308
00:14:01.200 --> 00:14:03.600
and the TV had pliers

309
00:14:03.600 --> 00:14:06.330
and David used to hold the antenna

310
00:14:06.330 --> 00:14:09.000
with the longest lead with a coat hanger

311
00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:13.023
and he'd be up on the roof getting reception for the TV.

312
00:14:13.023 --> 00:14:15.093
And I don't know, dad used to just,

313
00:14:16.170 --> 00:14:17.241
we used to love it.

314
00:14:17.241 --> 00:14:20.250
Like he'd just get things and he would just bring it home

315
00:14:20.250 --> 00:14:22.830
and he was just real good craftsman.

316
00:14:22.830 --> 00:14:24.930
But anyway, he would hold daily parties too

317
00:14:24.930 --> 00:14:26.670
'cause all the mob would come from the bush.

318
00:14:26.670 --> 00:14:29.160
They thought we were flash 'cause we lived in the urban area

319
00:14:29.160 --> 00:14:31.650
and we'd invite, they'd all come and sleep over.

320
00:14:31.650 --> 00:14:33.480
There was always guitar playing and songs

321
00:14:33.480 --> 00:14:36.630
and always performance

322
00:14:36.630 --> 00:14:41.630
like people miming that they were Patsy Klein

323
00:14:41.970 --> 00:14:43.680
or you know like.
(audience laughing)

324
00:14:43.680 --> 00:14:46.473
Someone was Elvis or you know, like,

325
00:14:48.300 --> 00:14:51.210
you know, and David used to do drag from a young age,

326
00:14:51.210 --> 00:14:54.360
you know, he was probably doing it way before Ru Paul.

327
00:14:54.360 --> 00:14:58.260
But you know, what I'm trying to get at is just,

328
00:14:58.260 --> 00:15:00.690
there was always just performance and entertainment

329
00:15:00.690 --> 00:15:02.640
and you know, we were brought up with musicals

330
00:15:02.640 --> 00:15:03.990
and Elvis Presley

331
00:15:03.990 --> 00:15:05.430
as well as going on country,

332
00:15:05.430 --> 00:15:07.650
we'd get on the Bedford and then go catfishing

333
00:15:07.650 --> 00:15:09.540
and mullet fishing with dad on country,

334
00:15:09.540 --> 00:15:11.570
go home and see the old mob, you know.

335
00:15:11.570 --> 00:15:13.050
So we had this both worlds

336
00:15:13.050 --> 00:15:18.050
and it really shaped my love of performance,

337
00:15:18.780 --> 00:15:22.440
was this having a taste already of this upbringing

338
00:15:22.440 --> 00:15:25.773
in this backyard of a family, this urban Black family.

339
00:15:26.670 --> 00:15:28.170
A little taste of language

340
00:15:28.170 --> 00:15:30.420
and whatever was sort of left over, you know,

341
00:15:30.420 --> 00:15:34.530
like I always felt sad for my dad's oldest cousins and stuff

342
00:15:34.530 --> 00:15:36.450
because they would try to hang on

343
00:15:36.450 --> 00:15:38.100
to as much as they can in language

344
00:15:38.100 --> 00:15:42.360
and yeah, just, they would gather and we were allowed

345
00:15:42.360 --> 00:15:44.400
to go down and we could hear them

346
00:15:44.400 --> 00:15:45.930
like rekindling the language

347
00:15:45.930 --> 00:15:47.700
and still trying to,

348
00:15:47.700 --> 00:15:49.110
my old Uncle Neville and Jian

349
00:15:49.110 --> 00:15:52.740
and they still go up the river there and fires

350
00:15:52.740 --> 00:15:54.150
and we'd always go and sit around

351
00:15:54.150 --> 00:15:58.290
and they would, you know, always camp back on the land.

352
00:15:58.290 --> 00:15:59.910
And then hearing stories from them.

353
00:15:59.910 --> 00:16:04.854
So you know, that one foot in that world,

354
00:16:04.854 --> 00:16:06.270
we would have that connection.

355
00:16:06.270 --> 00:16:08.163
And then this world.

356
00:16:12.360 --> 00:16:13.710
When I got to high school,

357
00:16:13.710 --> 00:16:15.450
I got kicked out in year 11

358
00:16:15.450 --> 00:16:18.940
'cause I challenged the English history teacher

359
00:16:20.550 --> 00:16:22.950
why we weren't doing Aboriginal history.

360
00:16:22.950 --> 00:16:24.330
So this is 1980.

361
00:16:24.330 --> 00:16:28.650
And I got sent to the principal's office

362
00:16:28.650 --> 00:16:30.780
and I got expelled for a week and I went home.

363
00:16:30.780 --> 00:16:32.010
And my mom,

364
00:16:32.010 --> 00:16:34.393
I was one of the first to go through 11 and 12, you know,

365
00:16:34.393 --> 00:16:36.570
'cause all the girls didn't get the opportunity,

366
00:16:36.570 --> 00:16:38.040
we didn't have the resources.

367
00:16:38.040 --> 00:16:40.980
And so my mother just, you know, she like any parent,

368
00:16:40.980 --> 00:16:42.870
she just wanted me to finish school

369
00:16:42.870 --> 00:16:44.170
and have a good education.

370
00:16:45.270 --> 00:16:46.860
But no, big noggin Stephen,

371
00:16:46.860 --> 00:16:48.990
wanted to challenge the history teacher.

372
00:16:48.990 --> 00:16:53.617
And she said, if you don't, yeah, she said,

373
00:16:53.617 --> 00:16:54.810
"If you don't get a job in a week,

374
00:16:54.810 --> 00:16:56.070
you're going back to school."

375
00:16:56.070 --> 00:16:59.370
And so my cousin was working of all places

376
00:16:59.370 --> 00:17:01.590
at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander legal service

377
00:17:01.590 --> 00:17:03.240
down on Roma Street,

378
00:17:03.240 --> 00:17:06.031
and said, "Do you know how to type?"

379
00:17:06.031 --> 00:17:07.890
And I said, "Yeah, I did business principle.

380
00:17:07.890 --> 00:17:09.596
Like they taught me how to type."

381
00:17:09.596 --> 00:17:10.710
And he said, "Oh, come down, come down

382
00:17:10.710 --> 00:17:12.780
and we'll get your job down there."

383
00:17:12.780 --> 00:17:15.690
So I went there and I think they labelled me

384
00:17:15.690 --> 00:17:18.872
some training civil law clerk or something

385
00:17:18.872 --> 00:17:20.160
and I was in the back.

386
00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:23.253
But it was my first taste of law and activism, you know,

387
00:17:24.690 --> 00:17:27.630
this is Celia Smith, this is Odgeroo Noonuccal,

388
00:17:27.630 --> 00:17:29.490
this is people coming in.

389
00:17:29.490 --> 00:17:32.310
I was getting understanding of bests in custody

390
00:17:32.310 --> 00:17:35.790
and it's just this whole social activism

391
00:17:35.790 --> 00:17:39.030
that wasn't in that upbringing as much,

392
00:17:39.030 --> 00:17:41.040
you know, dad never used to talk about it much.

393
00:17:41.040 --> 00:17:44.043
And it was because he was suppressed and he was, you know,

394
00:17:45.540 --> 00:17:49.560
he was carrying this generational trauma as well, you know,

395
00:17:49.560 --> 00:17:50.393
like we all carried it

396
00:17:50.393 --> 00:17:52.500
and he carried it and mom carried it

397
00:17:52.500 --> 00:17:57.000
and, you know, just to be caged up and not to feel free

398
00:17:57.000 --> 00:18:01.173
in spirit to celebrate their identity and their culture.

399
00:18:02.100 --> 00:18:04.770
But yet, in silence,

400
00:18:04.770 --> 00:18:07.920
they had this love of country and land

401
00:18:07.920 --> 00:18:09.603
and being at one with it.

402
00:18:10.440 --> 00:18:14.790
And so for me to get this side of the social political world

403
00:18:14.790 --> 00:18:16.620
and working in a legal service

404
00:18:16.620 --> 00:18:21.240
and seeing this other sort of social temperament,

405
00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:23.310
Black social temperament...

406
00:18:23.310 --> 00:18:25.080
So quick, I've got a quick little taste there.

407
00:18:25.080 --> 00:18:27.240
And then I saw the Aboriginal

408
00:18:27.240 --> 00:18:29.790
and Torres Strait Islander dance theatre advertised

409
00:18:31.170 --> 00:18:33.360
on this poster on the wall.

410
00:18:33.360 --> 00:18:35.760
And it said, "A careers in dance

411
00:18:35.760 --> 00:18:38.880
for Aboriginal Mob to join."

412
00:18:38.880 --> 00:18:40.380
And I didn't know there was a dance college

413
00:18:40.380 --> 00:18:43.380
and at that stage I just saw "Fame, the Musical" on TV,

414
00:18:43.380 --> 00:18:45.217
you know.
(audience laughing)

415
00:18:45.217 --> 00:18:47.490
And I used to imitate the steps in the room

416
00:18:47.490 --> 00:18:49.320
and thought I was really good

417
00:18:49.320 --> 00:18:52.177
and you know, and I thought,

418
00:18:52.177 --> 00:18:55.080
"Oh, there's a dance college."

419
00:18:55.080 --> 00:18:56.040
So I put an application

420
00:18:56.040 --> 00:18:57.840
and it was literally three months later,

421
00:18:57.840 --> 00:19:00.580
I was on a TAA flight

422
00:19:02.310 --> 00:19:03.330
down to Sydney.

423
00:19:03.330 --> 00:19:05.160
And you know what?

424
00:19:05.160 --> 00:19:09.660
Next year or yeah, next year would almost be,

425
00:19:09.660 --> 00:19:11.970
it'll be 40 years I've been in Sydney.

426
00:19:11.970 --> 00:19:15.840
And I left, I left to go to this college

427
00:19:15.840 --> 00:19:17.193
and I,

428
00:19:19.080 --> 00:19:20.613
yeah, just,

429
00:19:22.350 --> 00:19:23.850
there's artists from everywhere,

430
00:19:23.850 --> 00:19:27.030
Aboriginal and Torres Strait, traditional, urban,

431
00:19:27.030 --> 00:19:28.380
stolen, displaced.

432
00:19:28.380 --> 00:19:32.820
You had every form of Blackfella where you come from,

433
00:19:32.820 --> 00:19:35.070
in that one gathering ground.

434
00:19:35.070 --> 00:19:39.030
And everyone's focus was to have a careers in dance.

435
00:19:39.030 --> 00:19:42.270
And it was extraordinary 'cause, you know,

436
00:19:42.270 --> 00:19:44.583
when I stepped down from Bangarra last year,

437
00:19:45.883 --> 00:19:47.970
I was talking a little bit about this to Jude,

438
00:19:47.970 --> 00:19:50.310
you know, like you constantly,

439
00:19:50.310 --> 00:19:52.500
for 32 years, that's all I've known.

440
00:19:52.500 --> 00:19:56.130
It's the only payroll I've known. (laughs)

441
00:19:56.130 --> 00:19:57.600
You're in the momentum each day.

442
00:19:57.600 --> 00:19:58.800
You're making decisions every day.

443
00:19:58.800 --> 00:20:00.600
You've got 17 dancers in front of you.

444
00:20:00.600 --> 00:20:03.150
You've got mob who wants to give you a work and be in trust.

445
00:20:03.150 --> 00:20:06.330
You've got people in rural communities.

446
00:20:06.330 --> 00:20:09.270
This thing of just constantly communicating

447
00:20:09.270 --> 00:20:11.130
like I'm doing tonight,

448
00:20:11.130 --> 00:20:14.310
communicating and making decisions, you know.

449
00:20:14.310 --> 00:20:16.680
And the last four months of last year,

450
00:20:16.680 --> 00:20:17.940
I got to step back

451
00:20:17.940 --> 00:20:19.860
and I let Frances Rings, our associate director,

452
00:20:19.860 --> 00:20:21.270
and I said, "Go on.

453
00:20:21.270 --> 00:20:22.200
I don't need to go that meeting.

454
00:20:22.200 --> 00:20:23.033
You'd be all right."

455
00:20:23.033 --> 00:20:25.770
And I was just relaxing back

456
00:20:25.770 --> 00:20:28.350
but I was packing my office up slowly,

457
00:20:28.350 --> 00:20:31.230
a lot of stuff I had for 32 years.

458
00:20:31.230 --> 00:20:32.280
And I was looking over things

459
00:20:32.280 --> 00:20:33.997
and I was just reflecting and I was thinking,

460
00:20:33.997 --> 00:20:35.730
"Wow, 40 works

461
00:20:35.730 --> 00:20:40.264
and Olympics and travelling overseas and all these stories."

462
00:20:40.264 --> 00:20:43.530
And then sometimes my ego would get hurt a bit

463
00:20:43.530 --> 00:20:47.647
because I didn't get told about something and I'd be like,

464
00:20:47.647 --> 00:20:50.392
"Why wasn't I told that?" (laughing)

465
00:20:50.392 --> 00:20:51.570
"Well, you're not the boss anymore."

466
00:20:51.570 --> 00:20:52.720
And I said, "Aw, shit."

467
00:20:53.790 --> 00:20:56.873
(audience laughing)

468
00:20:58.050 --> 00:21:00.270
Yeah, I think the point I'm making

469
00:21:00.270 --> 00:21:04.770
was having time to get off that Aboriginal sushi train

470
00:21:04.770 --> 00:21:09.510
and stop and just like reflect and have those memories.

471
00:21:09.510 --> 00:21:11.610
And yeah, it was like grieving,

472
00:21:11.610 --> 00:21:12.997
you know, like I was just like,

473
00:21:12.997 --> 00:21:14.490
"Wow, this is extraordinary."

474
00:21:14.490 --> 00:21:16.470
Like I've had such the ups and downs

475
00:21:16.470 --> 00:21:17.670
and the good and the bad

476
00:21:17.670 --> 00:21:20.670
and the sorry business and the not-so-sorry business.

477
00:21:20.670 --> 00:21:25.560
But anyway, that college was the seed

478
00:21:25.560 --> 00:21:27.510
where all of us came together.

479
00:21:27.510 --> 00:21:30.270
And by the end of the time I did three years,

480
00:21:30.270 --> 00:21:32.580
I did a bit of stint with Graham Murphy and Janet Vernon

481
00:21:32.580 --> 00:21:33.600
and Sydney Dance Company.

482
00:21:33.600 --> 00:21:35.760
Got a taste on that side in contemporary dance.

483
00:21:35.760 --> 00:21:37.890
Then when I was left there after two years,

484
00:21:37.890 --> 00:21:41.130
'cause I was hungry to go back to the Blackfella college.

485
00:21:41.130 --> 00:21:44.703
And then by two years after that, you know,

486
00:21:45.570 --> 00:21:48.270
by 1989, we had birthed Bangarra

487
00:21:48.270 --> 00:21:52.620
and my brother, Russell, had come down and did five years

488
00:21:52.620 --> 00:21:53.700
at the dance college.

489
00:21:53.700 --> 00:21:56.700
My brother, David, was in the equivalent sort of college,

490
00:21:56.700 --> 00:21:58.590
but it was for music in Adelaide at the time

491
00:21:58.590 --> 00:22:00.420
and he came to Sydney.

492
00:22:00.420 --> 00:22:02.010
We just started creating together.

493
00:22:02.010 --> 00:22:03.060
We didn't know what we'd doing.

494
00:22:03.060 --> 00:22:06.660
We'd just rehearse that night and create movement.

495
00:22:06.660 --> 00:22:08.940
And David would have his synth programme

496
00:22:08.940 --> 00:22:11.430
and he'd always wanna write a pop song.

497
00:22:11.430 --> 00:22:13.604
We'd go, "Nah, don't make it too poppy."

498
00:22:13.604 --> 00:22:15.840
(audience laughing)

499
00:22:15.840 --> 00:22:16.963
But you know, like he,

500
00:22:17.880 --> 00:22:19.380
we got to be traditional tutors,

501
00:22:19.380 --> 00:22:22.263
whether they are from Yolngu mob,

502
00:22:22.263 --> 00:22:24.960
from families from Northeast Arnhem Land,

503
00:22:24.960 --> 00:22:27.670
through all them families

504
00:22:28.560 --> 00:22:30.690
from Putijarra mob through

505
00:22:30.690 --> 00:22:32.970
right up to Wurundjeri Mob and Kimberley.

506
00:22:32.970 --> 00:22:34.307
And then all the (indistinct),

507
00:22:35.550 --> 00:22:38.850
which is just, and then all the urban disconnected mob.

508
00:22:38.850 --> 00:22:40.950
And there was just like all these different fellows

509
00:22:40.950 --> 00:22:42.120
from all walks of life.

510
00:22:42.120 --> 00:22:44.643
And us three boys were there and,

511
00:22:48.240 --> 00:22:50.763
they just pushed me up the front and they said,

512
00:22:54.997 --> 00:22:58.050
"Hey, we should take over the Bangarra."

513
00:22:58.050 --> 00:22:58.883
Someone rang me and said,

514
00:22:58.883 --> 00:23:00.276
"Oh, do you wanna be artistic director?"

515
00:23:00.276 --> 00:23:01.109
I said, "I didn't go to college for that.

516
00:23:01.109 --> 00:23:02.430
I don't know what that is."

517
00:23:02.430 --> 00:23:05.310
And then next minute, you know,

518
00:23:05.310 --> 00:23:08.043
this is one of the first images in '90, around '92.

519
00:23:10.770 --> 00:23:11.940
It's probably got a date there.

520
00:23:11.940 --> 00:23:13.980
It's probably wrong. I don't know.

521
00:23:15.120 --> 00:23:17.553
But what I love about this photo,

522
00:23:19.020 --> 00:23:20.670
has some people that have passed,

523
00:23:21.570 --> 00:23:24.813
but the sense of traditional Torres Strait,

524
00:23:25.860 --> 00:23:27.873
traditional Aboriginal urban,

525
00:23:28.860 --> 00:23:33.860
and at this stage we hadn't really crossed over the art form

526
00:23:33.900 --> 00:23:35.280
of contemporary and traditional.

527
00:23:35.280 --> 00:23:36.510
It was, you know,

528
00:23:36.510 --> 00:23:39.150
we would do our contemporary response

529
00:23:39.150 --> 00:23:40.890
and then we'd do traditional separate.

530
00:23:40.890 --> 00:23:43.530
And this was the beginning,

531
00:23:43.530 --> 00:23:45.690
this clanship, this relationship.

532
00:23:45.690 --> 00:23:47.940
We didn't have nothing.

533
00:23:47.940 --> 00:23:49.020
We used to all do everything.

534
00:23:49.020 --> 00:23:51.510
We'd be stage manager, we used to wash our own costumes,

535
00:23:51.510 --> 00:23:53.430
we would teach each other

536
00:23:53.430 --> 00:23:56.790
and someone would hold class and this, and you know,

537
00:23:56.790 --> 00:24:00.930
we all would build sets with a budget of an oily rag.

538
00:24:00.930 --> 00:24:02.490
Like we'd have nothing, you know?

539
00:24:02.490 --> 00:24:05.763
And yeah, we tried to look real deadly there.

540
00:24:07.375 --> 00:24:09.090
I think we were all borrowing clothes, you know,

541
00:24:09.090 --> 00:24:11.943
we were living together, communally, hanging out.

542
00:24:16.770 --> 00:24:18.960
That seeded it, that was the seed.

543
00:24:18.960 --> 00:24:20.001
And then, you know,

544
00:24:20.001 --> 00:24:22.860
we did pray "Praying Mantis Dreaming" after that,

545
00:24:22.860 --> 00:24:25.440
which around that time,

546
00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:28.050
I think it was at the Canberra Theatre years,

547
00:24:28.050 --> 00:24:29.910
if anyone ever went to that.

548
00:24:29.910 --> 00:24:33.000
And "Praying Mantas Dreaming" was just this narrative,

549
00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:36.903
narrated story of traditional and contemporary.

550
00:24:38.220 --> 00:24:41.463
And that fellow up the front, Djakapurra Munyarryun,

551
00:24:41.463 --> 00:24:43.590
he lived with my brothers and I,

552
00:24:43.590 --> 00:24:46.680
and we got adopted into Yolngu families

553
00:24:46.680 --> 00:24:50.040
and you know, we'd come back

554
00:24:50.040 --> 00:24:53.190
and we'd share those experiences on country

555
00:24:53.190 --> 00:24:54.900
in another clan's backyard.

556
00:24:54.900 --> 00:24:56.730
And you know, we'd share that with our father.

557
00:24:56.730 --> 00:25:00.430
And you know, he never talked a lot

558
00:25:02.040 --> 00:25:03.063
when we were young.

559
00:25:06.279 --> 00:25:09.240
When we started doing this and creating and telling stories,

560
00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:13.110
and then coming back with learning of cultural practises

561
00:25:13.110 --> 00:25:15.480
from another living culture up North

562
00:25:15.480 --> 00:25:19.310
and showing him and Djakapurra coming out that place

563
00:25:19.310 --> 00:25:22.440
on 87 Canterbury Street, that urban house,

564
00:25:22.440 --> 00:25:24.240
that house commission we grew up in.

565
00:25:25.410 --> 00:25:27.660
You know, he started to, my father started to

566
00:25:28.950 --> 00:25:31.560
just accept that carry of that trauma and release it

567
00:25:31.560 --> 00:25:33.680
and then just talk about...

568
00:25:35.550 --> 00:25:37.740
My father, he had good principles of my father.

569
00:25:37.740 --> 00:25:40.230
He'd never blame anybody, you know.

570
00:25:40.230 --> 00:25:43.020
He'd said that was his fate, that was life.

571
00:25:43.020 --> 00:25:45.300
And he never made any excuses.

572
00:25:45.300 --> 00:25:50.300
And that's when I knew that what I was doing

573
00:25:50.850 --> 00:25:51.990
and what we were doing

574
00:25:51.990 --> 00:25:54.210
and this reconnection and through story

575
00:25:54.210 --> 00:25:58.140
and through the medicine of art,

576
00:25:58.140 --> 00:26:01.800
it's not just for us and having this mainstream company.

577
00:26:01.800 --> 00:26:05.580
At the same time, we were healing our own family, you know,

578
00:26:05.580 --> 00:26:07.023
through this experience.

579
00:26:08.280 --> 00:26:10.740
Oh, that's my dad with David and Russell and me.

580
00:26:10.740 --> 00:26:12.911
Look at my hair, I had hair then.

581
00:26:12.911 --> 00:26:15.994
(audience laughing)

582
00:26:17.627 --> 00:26:20.210
I was gonna say I look Mexican.

583
00:26:23.370 --> 00:26:27.540
Yeah, and I think with my dad, he just, he knew,

584
00:26:27.540 --> 00:26:29.040
like, he loved David singing.

585
00:26:29.040 --> 00:26:30.630
He loved David doing music

586
00:26:30.630 --> 00:26:32.460
and Russell performing.

587
00:26:32.460 --> 00:26:36.090
He used to see Russell do these contemporary moves

588
00:26:36.090 --> 00:26:39.210
and jump and Russell would land like a rabbit.

589
00:26:39.210 --> 00:26:40.230
You wouldn't hear him.

590
00:26:40.230 --> 00:26:44.460
And just the way, when he first saw us relive

591
00:26:44.460 --> 00:26:47.100
and revive traditional dance in our body,

592
00:26:47.100 --> 00:26:49.800
because he can remember that when he was young

593
00:26:49.800 --> 00:26:52.293
and singing the old mob dance, you know, so.

594
00:26:54.630 --> 00:26:55.463
Yeah.

595
00:26:56.790 --> 00:26:57.723
Good old dad.

596
00:26:58.920 --> 00:27:02.397
This fella, Djakapurra, this is when we created "Ochres."

597
00:27:05.070 --> 00:27:06.630
Do you reckon any of you could do that step?

598
00:27:06.630 --> 00:27:08.370
No.
(audience murmuring)

599
00:27:08.370 --> 00:27:10.228
I used to be able to do it. (chuckles)

600
00:27:10.228 --> 00:27:13.228
(audience laughing)

601
00:27:14.707 --> 00:27:16.860
"Ochres" was created, "Ochres" was about four colours,

602
00:27:16.860 --> 00:27:18.600
red, yellow, black, white,

603
00:27:18.600 --> 00:27:20.850
the significance of those colours,

604
00:27:20.850 --> 00:27:22.830
it's quite generic through a lot of clans,

605
00:27:22.830 --> 00:27:24.870
North, South, East, West of east of the country.

606
00:27:24.870 --> 00:27:27.070
Different practises have different purposes.

607
00:27:27.990 --> 00:27:31.020
You know, we looked at red as being

608
00:27:31.020 --> 00:27:34.950
a more generic contemporary form of kinship systems.

609
00:27:34.950 --> 00:27:36.690
We looked at yellow for women.

610
00:27:36.690 --> 00:27:39.120
Black ochres was for the sacred men's business.

611
00:27:39.120 --> 00:27:42.270
And the white ochres was just purely for healing

612
00:27:42.270 --> 00:27:43.170
and cleansing.

613
00:27:43.170 --> 00:27:47.220
And so really quite simple in a way,

614
00:27:47.220 --> 00:27:48.440
but just, I don't know,

615
00:27:48.440 --> 00:27:50.820
it was just this visual art form meets...

616
00:27:50.820 --> 00:27:52.890
And then David got in the room composing,

617
00:27:52.890 --> 00:27:55.260
and then Djakapurra was singing songs.

618
00:27:55.260 --> 00:27:56.493
He was a song band.

619
00:27:57.540 --> 00:27:59.070
And they were composing songs.

620
00:27:59.070 --> 00:28:02.250
And Djakapurra would just create these traditional songs

621
00:28:02.250 --> 00:28:04.290
that were new songs inspired by old songs.

622
00:28:04.290 --> 00:28:06.540
You know, he'd be ringing his mother back up in the homeland

623
00:28:06.540 --> 00:28:08.730
and we'd be like, "Oh, we gotta try to get permission

624
00:28:08.730 --> 00:28:09.720
for that song."

625
00:28:09.720 --> 00:28:12.267
And then he'd say, "Oh mom, I want to sing this song."

626
00:28:12.267 --> 00:28:14.010
And she said, "You can sing that song,

627
00:28:14.010 --> 00:28:15.660
but you're a song man.

628
00:28:15.660 --> 00:28:17.760
You should sing your own version of that."

629
00:28:18.810 --> 00:28:22.110
We were all just like these empty vessels,

630
00:28:22.110 --> 00:28:23.610
just these blank canvases,

631
00:28:23.610 --> 00:28:26.583
just sharing knowledge with each other.

632
00:28:28.222 --> 00:28:29.820
And so him and David would get in the music studio

633
00:28:29.820 --> 00:28:31.567
and they'd just create, and they'd go,

634
00:28:31.567 --> 00:28:33.030
"Hey, listen to this nine minutes,

635
00:28:33.030 --> 00:28:34.920
we've got a good section for the men's section."

636
00:28:34.920 --> 00:28:38.427
And Purra would have his recording thing on

637
00:28:38.427 --> 00:28:42.210
and do the calls and put the traditional music through

638
00:28:42.210 --> 00:28:44.250
with the synth composition.

639
00:28:44.250 --> 00:28:46.410
And I know, you just come in the room

640
00:28:46.410 --> 00:28:47.610
and all the boys would be in there.

641
00:28:47.610 --> 00:28:49.410
It's the same thing would happen with the girls.

642
00:28:49.410 --> 00:28:50.940
They would go through the same process

643
00:28:50.940 --> 00:28:52.530
with Djakapurra's sister.

644
00:28:52.530 --> 00:28:54.180
And so there was these beautiful practises

645
00:28:54.180 --> 00:28:57.360
and the way that we would collaborate, you know,

646
00:28:57.360 --> 00:29:01.020
like always together, always sharing it together.

647
00:29:01.020 --> 00:29:03.097
Yeah, I was bossy up the front leading and saying,

648
00:29:03.097 --> 00:29:03.930
"Yeah, let's have that.

649
00:29:03.930 --> 00:29:04.763
Let's have this.

650
00:29:04.763 --> 00:29:06.089
Now, let's go, we haven't got much time.

651
00:29:06.089 --> 00:29:08.139
We've only got two weeks to create this."

652
00:29:10.830 --> 00:29:11.893
But "Ochres"...

653
00:29:13.470 --> 00:29:14.570
Look, I spilled there.

654
00:29:16.717 --> 00:29:17.803
"Ochres"...

655
00:29:19.200 --> 00:29:20.613
Yeah, "Ochres" was special.

656
00:29:22.950 --> 00:29:24.983
I kind of feel like my father with a hanky.

657
00:29:27.307 --> 00:29:29.310
"Ochres" yeah, it was very special.

658
00:29:29.310 --> 00:29:33.720
And it shifted the dance landscape, like contemporary dance,

659
00:29:33.720 --> 00:29:36.298
like people were watching it and seeing it.

660
00:29:36.298 --> 00:29:37.670
And I don't know if any of you saw it "Ochres"

661
00:29:37.670 --> 00:29:39.990
in the very original days

662
00:29:39.990 --> 00:29:41.700
birthed in '94, '93.

663
00:29:41.700 --> 00:29:43.290
I didn't even know their nineties anymore.

664
00:29:43.290 --> 00:29:45.210
I'm not saying that I had bad experiences,

665
00:29:45.210 --> 00:29:46.863
it's just there's a lot happened.

666
00:29:50.520 --> 00:29:52.380
Yeah, and I think,

667
00:29:52.380 --> 00:29:56.520
it just, it broke down boundaries as well,

668
00:29:56.520 --> 00:29:59.820
like where traditional movement,

669
00:29:59.820 --> 00:30:00.990
contemporary movement

670
00:30:00.990 --> 00:30:03.280
of what knowledge we knew of contemporary

671
00:30:04.500 --> 00:30:09.450
were explored in the process together

672
00:30:09.450 --> 00:30:12.240
where from flex feet to feet

673
00:30:12.240 --> 00:30:17.240
to traditional motifs, physically.

674
00:30:17.430 --> 00:30:18.980
I don't know, it was just like,

675
00:30:21.359 --> 00:30:22.350
we always asked to,

676
00:30:22.350 --> 00:30:23.647
I think people just ring us up and say,

677
00:30:23.647 --> 00:30:25.380
"Hey, you know, labanotation,

678
00:30:25.380 --> 00:30:26.640
it's when you write down dance,

679
00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:28.083
can you write it all down?"

680
00:30:28.083 --> 00:30:29.070
We're like, "Get away with your writing.

681
00:30:29.070 --> 00:30:30.390
We just wanna create, you know?"

682
00:30:30.390 --> 00:30:32.610
Like, we'll just do it, you know?

683
00:30:32.610 --> 00:30:34.683
And from that moment,

684
00:30:36.270 --> 00:30:37.860
that crossover, it just,

685
00:30:37.860 --> 00:30:40.560
it was the, yeah, it's just the seed.

686
00:30:40.560 --> 00:30:43.170
It sparked me, it sparked David

687
00:30:43.170 --> 00:30:45.340
and Rusty and Djakapurra

688
00:30:45.340 --> 00:30:46.620
and Djakapurra used to live with us

689
00:30:46.620 --> 00:30:47.767
and you know, he'd say, look,

690
00:30:47.767 --> 00:30:50.070
"I'll be your eyes in the bush when we go home then.

691
00:30:50.070 --> 00:30:51.510
And you'd be my eyes in the city."

692
00:30:51.510 --> 00:30:53.460
So he'd be a three-year old

693
00:30:53.460 --> 00:30:55.710
and we'd be a three-year-old when we go up on country.

694
00:30:55.710 --> 00:31:00.460
And yeah, just a beautiful relationship started

695
00:31:01.980 --> 00:31:02.813
at that beginning

696
00:31:02.813 --> 00:31:04.260
and that was the, yeah,

697
00:31:04.260 --> 00:31:07.550
that was the real fertiliser that sort of...

698
00:31:09.327 --> 00:31:10.160
And this is later on,

699
00:31:10.160 --> 00:31:13.770
this is 2015 with some current third generation of dancers

700
00:31:13.770 --> 00:31:15.093
coming through Bangarra.

701
00:31:17.370 --> 00:31:18.483
And Djakapurra.

702
00:31:20.460 --> 00:31:24.000
In '97, I got the opportunity,

703
00:31:24.000 --> 00:31:25.740
well, in '96 I got to opportunity,

704
00:31:25.740 --> 00:31:27.570
mainly Maina Gielgud was running the Australian Ballet

705
00:31:27.570 --> 00:31:31.200
and she wanted me to do a work for a contemporary programme.

706
00:31:31.200 --> 00:31:33.300
We only performed in Melbourne.

707
00:31:33.300 --> 00:31:35.670
And I said, "Oh, can I bring my brother, David?"

708
00:31:35.670 --> 00:31:36.507
And she said, "Oh yeah."

709
00:31:36.507 --> 00:31:38.373
And I said, "I don't know what this is gonna be like,

710
00:31:38.373 --> 00:31:41.490
like we gotta choreograph on non-indigenous fellows.

711
00:31:41.490 --> 00:31:42.390
Do you want a Black story?

712
00:31:42.390 --> 00:31:43.223
You can have a Black story.

713
00:31:43.223 --> 00:31:44.700
If it's non-indigenous, how are we gonna do this?

714
00:31:44.700 --> 00:31:46.830
You know, what's the politics around this?"

715
00:31:46.830 --> 00:31:47.663
And...

716
00:31:50.220 --> 00:31:52.600
We end up doing this contemporary version

717
00:31:53.700 --> 00:31:56.200
that I felt was

718
00:31:57.330 --> 00:31:59.340
maintain the integrity of what we were doing.

719
00:31:59.340 --> 00:32:01.860
And also it gave the experience of non-indigenous dancers.

720
00:32:01.860 --> 00:32:05.370
And a lot of it was very much the contemporary modern form,

721
00:32:05.370 --> 00:32:07.800
the grounded form of what we did.

722
00:32:07.800 --> 00:32:12.240
And we did that in '96 with the work Alchemy.

723
00:32:12.240 --> 00:32:14.160
And then the following year,

724
00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:16.620
Maina had left and Ross Stratton was the artistic director

725
00:32:16.620 --> 00:32:20.462
and he said, "Oh man, I just saw 'Ochres'."

726
00:32:20.462 --> 00:32:22.410
He actually saw it in Canberra.

727
00:32:22.410 --> 00:32:26.220
And he said, "Can we do a work with Bangarra?"

728
00:32:26.220 --> 00:32:27.780
And I said, "Oh, that's great."

729
00:32:27.780 --> 00:32:30.120
Like David and I, let's bring Bangarra.

730
00:32:30.120 --> 00:32:32.640
And then he said, "Oh, but can you do a work

731
00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:35.160
to Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring'?"

732
00:32:35.160 --> 00:32:37.659
And I said, "Who is that?"

733
00:32:37.659 --> 00:32:38.753
(audience laughing)
And then, um-

734
00:32:40.320 --> 00:32:41.683
Then he gave me the CD.

735
00:32:41.683 --> 00:32:42.767
I went home, I think I fell asleep

736
00:32:42.767 --> 00:32:46.920
in the first three minutes.
(audience laughing)

737
00:32:46.920 --> 00:32:48.293
It's like 33 minutes.

738
00:32:48.293 --> 00:32:49.620
You all know Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring."

739
00:32:49.620 --> 00:32:51.453
And it's the rite of passage.

740
00:32:52.890 --> 00:32:55.080
All it's saying, nuances and story,

741
00:32:55.080 --> 00:32:57.210
was what I was born into.

742
00:32:57.210 --> 00:32:59.790
You know, it's the same in First Nations culture

743
00:32:59.790 --> 00:33:01.650
from ritual to rites of passage.

744
00:33:01.650 --> 00:33:04.710
And so there was just this yin and yang version

745
00:33:04.710 --> 00:33:06.123
of the same theme, you know?

746
00:33:09.030 --> 00:33:10.410
So we went in with the ballet

747
00:33:10.410 --> 00:33:12.150
and we took their ballet shoes off

748
00:33:12.150 --> 00:33:16.170
and they had to be barefoot and Rusty and Djakapurra.

749
00:33:16.170 --> 00:33:18.632
Why I brought this image is because, you know,

750
00:33:18.632 --> 00:33:19.465
it might be a bit cliche,

751
00:33:19.465 --> 00:33:21.000
but the sense of reconciliation

752
00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:23.340
and learning and sharing together,

753
00:33:23.340 --> 00:33:25.590
like we just lived and breathed it.

754
00:33:25.590 --> 00:33:26.460
They had no choice.

755
00:33:26.460 --> 00:33:28.500
They had to smell each other and they all stunk.

756
00:33:28.500 --> 00:33:32.280
And you know, black skin, pink skin,

757
00:33:32.280 --> 00:33:33.337
one of the girls come up and said,

758
00:33:33.337 --> 00:33:35.310
"I've never met an Aboriginal person before."

759
00:33:35.310 --> 00:33:37.050
Like, this is crazy.

760
00:33:37.050 --> 00:33:39.690
This is '97, you know.

761
00:33:39.690 --> 00:33:43.950
And once again, it's these processes

762
00:33:43.950 --> 00:33:47.310
that dominate the product of the work.

763
00:33:47.310 --> 00:33:48.143
You know what I'm saying?

764
00:33:48.143 --> 00:33:51.210
Like it's the processes and the relationships

765
00:33:51.210 --> 00:33:56.210
and the sharing of culture is at its true form, you know?

766
00:33:56.550 --> 00:33:59.610
And yes, we had Stravinsky's score,

767
00:33:59.610 --> 00:34:02.673
we had this Russians' score that no one could count.

768
00:34:04.350 --> 00:34:08.550
But once we put story to it, our story to it,

769
00:34:08.550 --> 00:34:10.680
and we looked at the four different elements

770
00:34:10.680 --> 00:34:13.710
of earth, fire, wind and water

771
00:34:13.710 --> 00:34:15.480
and Djakapurra and I were,

772
00:34:15.480 --> 00:34:18.783
we featured Djakapurra. (laughing)

773
00:34:23.010 --> 00:34:24.750
He listened to it first and he looked at me

774
00:34:24.750 --> 00:34:27.060
and he reckoned, "What are you gonna do you?"

775
00:34:27.060 --> 00:34:29.767
Because he was looking at me thinking, (laughing)

776
00:34:29.767 --> 00:34:31.380
"Okay, we're gonna dance to this."

777
00:34:31.380 --> 00:34:35.820
Anyway, then we ended dancing with a live orchestra

778
00:34:35.820 --> 00:34:38.460
and usually in the ballet,

779
00:34:38.460 --> 00:34:39.360
that all doesn't happen

780
00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:41.100
until like your dress rehearsal, you know?

781
00:34:41.100 --> 00:34:43.560
So we just had this recording

782
00:34:43.560 --> 00:34:46.650
and this is Sydney intersection called Fire.

783
00:34:46.650 --> 00:34:48.600
Anyway, the story I want to get to,

784
00:34:48.600 --> 00:34:52.170
it went to the city centre in 1999 in New York,

785
00:34:52.170 --> 00:34:54.330
the company's first time,

786
00:34:54.330 --> 00:34:57.270
fully fledged performance in New York.

787
00:34:57.270 --> 00:34:58.103
And...

788
00:35:00.780 --> 00:35:01.803
Djakapurra,

789
00:35:03.150 --> 00:35:04.320
I don't know, he had sorry,

790
00:35:04.320 --> 00:35:06.720
he had sad news from home and I felt really bad

791
00:35:06.720 --> 00:35:08.430
and I was, "What are we gonna do?"

792
00:35:08.430 --> 00:35:09.263
And he said, "No, no, no."

793
00:35:09.263 --> 00:35:10.800
He said, so we had a little moment,

794
00:35:10.800 --> 00:35:12.060
we brought all the dancers together

795
00:35:12.060 --> 00:35:14.640
and he had his bilma and his didgeridoo.

796
00:35:14.640 --> 00:35:16.740
We just sung some songs

797
00:35:16.740 --> 00:35:18.960
just to ground our spirit, you know.

798
00:35:18.960 --> 00:35:21.600
And someone come knocking on the door

799
00:35:21.600 --> 00:35:22.770
and said, "Half hour call."

800
00:35:22.770 --> 00:35:23.603
And we said,

801
00:35:23.603 --> 00:35:26.400
"Oh wait, we're doing a ceremony waiting a minute."

802
00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:29.610
And then its opening night New York City

803
00:35:29.610 --> 00:35:32.250
and you got all the Blackfellas down at one end

804
00:35:32.250 --> 00:35:33.900
and we were all just, you know,

805
00:35:33.900 --> 00:35:37.050
we just wanted to make sure that everyone felt safe

806
00:35:37.050 --> 00:35:40.320
and yeah, just strong, just strong spiritually.

807
00:35:40.320 --> 00:35:44.287
And Purra, I turned to Djakapurra and I said,

808
00:35:44.287 --> 00:35:45.810
"Well you know what would make you feel good?

809
00:35:45.810 --> 00:35:48.630
Do you wanna sing a song before Stravinsky's,

810
00:35:48.630 --> 00:35:51.120
that first note of Stravinsky starts first

811
00:35:51.120 --> 00:35:52.440
with the orchestra?"

812
00:35:52.440 --> 00:35:56.070
And he said, "Well, I just sit there and you know?"

813
00:35:56.070 --> 00:35:57.420
I said, "Yeah, you can just sit on the ground, you know,

814
00:35:57.420 --> 00:35:59.520
you're sitting there in the beginning.

815
00:35:59.520 --> 00:36:01.170
Get your clap sticks.

816
00:36:01.170 --> 00:36:03.240
You could just cleanse the whole auditorium.

817
00:36:03.240 --> 00:36:04.950
You can just do two minutes

818
00:36:04.950 --> 00:36:07.170
and then I'll tell the conductor.

819
00:36:07.170 --> 00:36:09.570
But you've gotta make sure when you finish that note,

820
00:36:09.570 --> 00:36:13.590
you finish low so that he can start low from Stravinksy

821
00:36:13.590 --> 00:36:15.417
'cause that note will go up."

822
00:36:16.290 --> 00:36:19.560
And anyway, so we went to the American conductor

823
00:36:19.560 --> 00:36:21.690
and Charles Baker, his name was,

824
00:36:21.690 --> 00:36:24.600
and I said, "This is like 10 minute core."

825
00:36:24.600 --> 00:36:25.433
And I said, "Oh,

826
00:36:27.150 --> 00:36:30.906
we're gonna put a song at the beginning before you start."

827
00:36:30.906 --> 00:36:32.070
(audience laughing)

828
00:36:32.070 --> 00:36:34.410
And he's got his tux on, his penguin bow tie.

829
00:36:34.410 --> 00:36:36.750
And he's, "What are you talking about?

830
00:36:36.750 --> 00:36:37.583
What are you talking about?"

831
00:36:37.583 --> 00:36:39.210
I said, "No, no, no, we're gonna,

832
00:36:39.210 --> 00:36:40.920
trust me, it's all gonna be fine."

833
00:36:40.920 --> 00:36:42.960
Djakapurra's just gonna sit in the front.

834
00:36:42.960 --> 00:36:44.850
The dancers are gonna stay low on the ground

835
00:36:44.850 --> 00:36:48.510
like their first position and he'll just sing.

836
00:36:48.510 --> 00:36:49.770
You'll know when he's finished

837
00:36:49.770 --> 00:36:51.300
'cause he's gonna look at you.

838
00:36:51.300 --> 00:36:52.747
And he went,

839
00:36:52.747 --> 00:36:55.680
"And he'll finish and he'll hit the clap stick."

840
00:36:55.680 --> 00:36:57.757
And so he was sweating more.

841
00:36:57.757 --> 00:37:00.757
(audience laughing)

842
00:37:02.550 --> 00:37:03.840
Purra was beautiful.

843
00:37:03.840 --> 00:37:06.333
He just sung that whole auditorium.

844
00:37:07.230 --> 00:37:09.725
And he does, you know, Djakapurra used to go really high.

845
00:37:09.725 --> 00:37:11.400
(mimicking high voice)

846
00:37:11.400 --> 00:37:12.600
He'd go really high

847
00:37:12.600 --> 00:37:13.950
and then he'd go really low

848
00:37:15.830 --> 00:37:18.930
and you couldn't hear a pin drop

849
00:37:18.930 --> 00:37:20.850
'cause all them mob from New York,

850
00:37:20.850 --> 00:37:22.920
they come in for a six o'clock show,

851
00:37:22.920 --> 00:37:24.270
they bring all their energy, yeah,

852
00:37:24.270 --> 00:37:26.550
they're hopping off the subway and whatever it is.

853
00:37:26.550 --> 00:37:30.600
And even in the auditorium at 10 minutes two,

854
00:37:30.600 --> 00:37:33.600
you could just hear this chaos of people talking.

855
00:37:33.600 --> 00:37:36.210
Well, as soon as that light went down,

856
00:37:36.210 --> 00:37:37.590
people are still talking.

857
00:37:37.590 --> 00:37:41.220
Djakapurra hit that clip stick and he started to sing

858
00:37:41.220 --> 00:37:43.920
and it was just pitch quiet.

859
00:37:43.920 --> 00:37:46.740
And I thought, "Holy shit, you know what?

860
00:37:46.740 --> 00:37:47.970
They would never ever heard

861
00:37:47.970 --> 00:37:50.490
Native Tongues singing like this.

862
00:37:50.490 --> 00:37:52.470
Forget Stravinsky.

863
00:37:52.470 --> 00:37:54.357
This is older than Stravinsky."

864
00:37:55.290 --> 00:37:58.260
And he just started crying.

865
00:37:58.260 --> 00:38:01.260
He was sitting on the ground with clap sticks

866
00:38:01.260 --> 00:38:04.230
and he said, I could tell he could feel it,

867
00:38:04.230 --> 00:38:05.850
he could feel his ancestors

868
00:38:05.850 --> 00:38:07.650
and it was the right thing to do

869
00:38:07.650 --> 00:38:10.290
because it just comfort everybody.

870
00:38:10.290 --> 00:38:11.880
And I think that's why

871
00:38:11.880 --> 00:38:14.048
they liked the Rites section so much,

872
00:38:14.048 --> 00:38:15.900
I don't know, thanks to Djakapurra.

873
00:38:15.900 --> 00:38:19.650
But we ended up doing the Rites section

874
00:38:19.650 --> 00:38:21.180
and he came in with the,

875
00:38:21.180 --> 00:38:24.450
Charles conducted and he'd come in with the orchestra

876
00:38:24.450 --> 00:38:26.520
and after it he was just blown away.

877
00:38:26.520 --> 00:38:28.860
He just said the marination of,

878
00:38:28.860 --> 00:38:29.693
you just sort of had to,

879
00:38:29.693 --> 00:38:31.230
it was one of those moments

880
00:38:31.230 --> 00:38:32.580
and it was just really special.

881
00:38:32.580 --> 00:38:34.457
And Dkakapurra was incredible

882
00:38:34.457 --> 00:38:36.180
and it was an incredible night.

883
00:38:36.180 --> 00:38:38.760
And that's where we met our North American agent

884
00:38:38.760 --> 00:38:39.787
who walked up and she said,

885
00:38:39.787 --> 00:38:41.280
"I wanna work with the Aborigines."

886
00:38:41.280 --> 00:38:42.976
And I said, "You can't say that."

887
00:38:42.976 --> 00:38:46.440
(audience laughing)

888
00:38:46.440 --> 00:38:48.900
I said, "Politically incorrect,

889
00:38:48.900 --> 00:38:51.300
you can't say I wanna work with the Aborigines."

890
00:38:52.620 --> 00:38:55.980
And she was this rich Jewish woman and she was an agent.

891
00:38:55.980 --> 00:38:57.750
She looked after Rudolf Nureyev,

892
00:38:57.750 --> 00:38:59.190
she'd looked after many people.

893
00:38:59.190 --> 00:39:01.650
She ran ABT, American Ballet Theatre.

894
00:39:01.650 --> 00:39:03.300
She knew everybody.

895
00:39:03.300 --> 00:39:05.730
But she said, "I wanna look after the Aborigines."

896
00:39:05.730 --> 00:39:06.630
And I said, "Okay,

897
00:39:06.630 --> 00:39:09.690
well first you gotta start calling us Bangarra."

898
00:39:09.690 --> 00:39:13.830
And then, anyway, quick education for her.

899
00:39:13.830 --> 00:39:15.780
But we end up for the next seven years

900
00:39:15.780 --> 00:39:17.968
travelling through North America.

901
00:39:17.968 --> 00:39:22.230
We went back in 2001, two weeks after 9/11.

902
00:39:22.230 --> 00:39:23.063
Incredible.

903
00:39:23.063 --> 00:39:24.570
I could tell you a story about that,

904
00:39:24.570 --> 00:39:26.100
but I don't want you falling asleep.

905
00:39:26.100 --> 00:39:28.800
But she, just incredible.

906
00:39:28.800 --> 00:39:32.760
Another cultural connection. (sighs)

907
00:39:32.760 --> 00:39:33.933
I'll do one quickly.

908
00:39:35.136 --> 00:39:36.030
We get there,

909
00:39:36.030 --> 00:39:39.300
the dancers and then we all felt we needed to,

910
00:39:39.300 --> 00:39:40.830
we could only get to Union Square

911
00:39:40.830 --> 00:39:43.230
because that was as far as we could go

912
00:39:43.230 --> 00:39:45.930
'cause everything was Ground Zero from there.

913
00:39:45.930 --> 00:39:48.600
And we just wanted to pay our respect in some form.

914
00:39:48.600 --> 00:39:50.730
So we did a ceremony in Union Square.

915
00:39:50.730 --> 00:39:54.870
We just sat around and we had some, that's right.

916
00:39:54.870 --> 00:39:56.910
We didn't have our Ochre with us, our white clay,

917
00:39:56.910 --> 00:39:59.220
'cause we like to just have that as the protection

918
00:39:59.220 --> 00:40:00.053
to put on us.

919
00:40:00.053 --> 00:40:03.930
And it's just a little energy of a marking that we do.

920
00:40:03.930 --> 00:40:07.200
And it was just a generic protection of a marking.

921
00:40:07.200 --> 00:40:09.900
Well anyway, we drive in Manhattan,

922
00:40:09.900 --> 00:40:12.453
uptown through Harlem coming through.

923
00:40:13.975 --> 00:40:15.720
And I said, "They didn't pack the ochres.

924
00:40:15.720 --> 00:40:16.553
So I was like,

925
00:40:16.553 --> 00:40:19.472
"Oh, stop at this pottery shop."

926
00:40:19.472 --> 00:40:20.580
(audience laughing)

927
00:40:20.580 --> 00:40:21.930
And the driver didn't know what I was saying.

928
00:40:21.930 --> 00:40:24.120
And so we pull up to this arts and craft pottery

929
00:40:24.120 --> 00:40:27.570
and Russell looks at me and he's like, "What are you doing?"

930
00:40:27.570 --> 00:40:29.430
I said, "Come with me, come with me."

931
00:40:29.430 --> 00:40:31.590
We go inside and I said, "They must have white clay,

932
00:40:31.590 --> 00:40:33.000
like it's just white clay."

933
00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:34.717
Like, anyway, this woman said,

934
00:40:34.717 --> 00:40:35.940
"Yeah, that's white clay."

935
00:40:35.940 --> 00:40:37.440
And I thought it might have been.

936
00:40:37.440 --> 00:40:38.610
And Russ was like, "(indistinct) gonna be right."

937
00:40:38.610 --> 00:40:40.350
Anyway, I take it on the bus,

938
00:40:40.350 --> 00:40:42.480
we put water, we mix the clay

939
00:40:42.480 --> 00:40:43.800
so everyone starts to,

940
00:40:43.800 --> 00:40:46.980
here, I was thinking, you know, really culturally ceremony,

941
00:40:46.980 --> 00:40:49.200
obviously looking after everyone

942
00:40:49.200 --> 00:40:51.030
and they put this clay on.

943
00:40:51.030 --> 00:40:54.420
Well, Elmer and Peggy, the two Torres Strait girls,

944
00:40:54.420 --> 00:40:57.960
they've got the most woolly wire hair than anybody.

945
00:40:57.960 --> 00:40:59.870
And so they started putting this ochres

946
00:40:59.870 --> 00:41:01.860
in their woolly wire hair.

947
00:41:01.860 --> 00:41:05.310
And they, anyway, we were there, we were really patient,

948
00:41:05.310 --> 00:41:08.040
we got caught in traffic and I had a bucket,

949
00:41:08.040 --> 00:41:09.990
went from the back to the front

950
00:41:09.990 --> 00:41:11.190
and we get to Union Square.

951
00:41:11.190 --> 00:41:12.777
Anyway, we go in there

952
00:41:12.777 --> 00:41:15.660
and then we all sit in the semicircle.

953
00:41:15.660 --> 00:41:17.673
And anyway, Djakapurra does some songs.

954
00:41:20.160 --> 00:41:24.510
Well, next minute, I see Sydney and Russell in there,

955
00:41:24.510 --> 00:41:27.990
and Sydney, I could see Sydney start picking the thing.

956
00:41:27.990 --> 00:41:30.120
Anyway, it ended up being the wrong clay.

957
00:41:30.120 --> 00:41:35.120
It was like some clay pottery mix you put into something.

958
00:41:35.220 --> 00:41:38.114
So it became very hard and not, and so-

959
00:41:38.114 --> 00:41:40.230
(audience laughing)

960
00:41:40.230 --> 00:41:42.813
So everyone was like, they had like, you know,

961
00:41:43.920 --> 00:41:47.515
native bush Botox.
(audience laughing)

962
00:41:47.515 --> 00:41:49.620
Like 'cause they were all like, you know,

963
00:41:49.620 --> 00:41:52.426
and like Sydney's eyes were up here, you know?

964
00:41:52.426 --> 00:41:53.580
(audience laughing)

965
00:41:53.580 --> 00:41:54.783
And then I was like,

966
00:41:55.740 --> 00:41:58.650
I was looking and I was trying to be like really respectful

967
00:41:58.650 --> 00:42:00.150
and Purra was trying to connect.

968
00:42:00.150 --> 00:42:03.450
And then next minute Purra's belly started going like

969
00:42:03.450 --> 00:42:05.010
he was-
(audience laughing)

970
00:42:05.010 --> 00:42:08.910
And then Peggy and them were picking their Afro hair.

971
00:42:08.910 --> 00:42:12.453
Anyway, Russell was just shaking his head like,

972
00:42:13.417 --> 00:42:16.980
"Oh this fella, why do you do this to us?"

973
00:42:16.980 --> 00:42:20.070
Anyway, we get back on the bus.

974
00:42:20.070 --> 00:42:22.110
Oh, at the end of that story,

975
00:42:22.110 --> 00:42:24.063
while we there going through that,

976
00:42:24.900 --> 00:42:27.870
Purra sang this beautiful song

977
00:42:27.870 --> 00:42:31.590
and he was singing for a while, like five minutes

978
00:42:31.590 --> 00:42:33.240
'cause it was really hard for him.

979
00:42:33.240 --> 00:42:35.340
'Cause for him, I know Purra when he's connecting

980
00:42:35.340 --> 00:42:38.970
'cause I'm not saying by a minute and a half he's connected,

981
00:42:38.970 --> 00:42:40.710
but you know when he's connected to something

982
00:42:40.710 --> 00:42:44.430
and something about five, six minutes, you know?

983
00:42:44.430 --> 00:42:49.110
And out of nowhere, this Native American Indian fella,

984
00:42:49.110 --> 00:42:50.820
cowboy hat,

985
00:42:50.820 --> 00:42:52.293
older fella,

986
00:42:53.340 --> 00:42:55.980
was right at the back and just walked past

987
00:42:55.980 --> 00:42:57.690
and stopped right in front of us.

988
00:42:57.690 --> 00:42:59.310
And there was a crowd in front of them,

989
00:42:59.310 --> 00:43:02.220
like crowd just watching us in the park.

990
00:43:02.220 --> 00:43:04.680
And he walked and Purra finished

991
00:43:04.680 --> 00:43:07.320
and Purra, and they just walked to each other

992
00:43:07.320 --> 00:43:09.457
and he walked up to me and he said,

993
00:43:09.457 --> 00:43:11.220
"Ah, you's the Natives aren't you?"

994
00:43:11.220 --> 00:43:13.110
He said, "You's are natives."

995
00:43:13.110 --> 00:43:15.540
He said, "I could hear that singing all the way up

996
00:43:15.540 --> 00:43:16.680
seven blocks.

997
00:43:16.680 --> 00:43:19.170
I could hear that singing."

998
00:43:19.170 --> 00:43:22.530
And that whole tour after that we went

999
00:43:22.530 --> 00:43:25.290
from East coast to West coast.

1000
00:43:25.290 --> 00:43:28.293
I tell you that, a Native American Indian black vine,

1001
00:43:29.280 --> 00:43:31.710
no, well that's probably Facebook.

1002
00:43:31.710 --> 00:43:33.840
I don't know what it was it called in them days,

1003
00:43:33.840 --> 00:43:35.550
we had no phones or nothing

1004
00:43:35.550 --> 00:43:37.500
but that black vine talking,

1005
00:43:37.500 --> 00:43:40.110
by the time we got to the West coast and Arizona

1006
00:43:40.110 --> 00:43:41.973
and everywhere and performing,

1007
00:43:42.840 --> 00:43:46.713
we just had these mob turning up, like us.

1008
00:43:46.713 --> 00:43:48.600
They were just turning up.

1009
00:43:48.600 --> 00:43:51.060
And they don't have the Bangarra,

1010
00:43:51.060 --> 00:43:52.860
they don't have a crossover

1011
00:43:52.860 --> 00:43:54.930
of contemporary and traditional.

1012
00:43:54.930 --> 00:43:56.280
And so we were just like,

1013
00:43:56.280 --> 00:43:57.330
everyone was just connecting

1014
00:43:57.330 --> 00:43:59.130
and then they were running little ceremonies for us,

1015
00:43:59.130 --> 00:44:00.870
the performers, just gathering people together.

1016
00:44:00.870 --> 00:44:03.810
But it was just this beautiful reciprocation

1017
00:44:03.810 --> 00:44:06.720
between clans and this like the world is small,

1018
00:44:06.720 --> 00:44:09.000
like this sense of similarities.

1019
00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:10.560
And it was our first connection,

1020
00:44:10.560 --> 00:44:15.330
our clanship connection with Native American Indians.

1021
00:44:15.330 --> 00:44:20.330
But also later on as we went down 2018, 2016,

1022
00:44:21.905 --> 00:44:22.738
2018...

1023
00:44:28.140 --> 00:44:29.703
Sorry, at the end of 2018,

1024
00:44:31.320 --> 00:44:34.740
it took us that long to organise a tour from Vancouver

1025
00:44:34.740 --> 00:44:35.910
'cause we wanted to go to Canada

1026
00:44:35.910 --> 00:44:38.460
'cause it was very strong, First Nations Canadians.

1027
00:44:39.450 --> 00:44:40.530
And they were getting shitty.

1028
00:44:40.530 --> 00:44:42.690
They were like why is Bangarra not coming, you know?

1029
00:44:42.690 --> 00:44:43.523
We said, "We're gonna get there, we're gonna get there,

1030
00:44:43.523 --> 00:44:45.441
we've gotta get there."

1031
00:44:45.441 --> 00:44:47.613
And we went from Vancouver to Ottawa,

1032
00:44:48.450 --> 00:44:49.470
west to east,

1033
00:44:50.443 --> 00:44:53.670
3000 to 4,000 seat venues, mainstream venues,

1034
00:44:53.670 --> 00:44:56.040
four shows in each place, sold out.

1035
00:44:56.040 --> 00:44:58.650
And so I said, and DFAT rang from here.

1036
00:44:58.650 --> 00:45:00.270
they live here in Canberra,

1037
00:45:00.270 --> 00:45:02.130
Department of Foreign Affairs.

1038
00:45:02.130 --> 00:45:05.610
Sorry, I get mad with them 'cause when they want a mascot,

1039
00:45:05.610 --> 00:45:06.829
they ring Bangarra.

1040
00:45:06.829 --> 00:45:08.520
I said, "You don't ring the ballet or the opera,

1041
00:45:08.520 --> 00:45:10.290
you gotta ring us."

1042
00:45:10.290 --> 00:45:13.290
Anyway, just shows what sort of identity

1043
00:45:13.290 --> 00:45:14.610
we run in this country.

1044
00:45:14.610 --> 00:45:19.440
Anyway, so with DFAT, I said,

1045
00:45:19.440 --> 00:45:20.940
we'll go and do this,

1046
00:45:20.940 --> 00:45:23.610
but we need to have mob represented in every venue.

1047
00:45:23.610 --> 00:45:26.010
So we got First Nations mob to open our acts

1048
00:45:26.010 --> 00:45:27.090
in every place we were.

1049
00:45:27.090 --> 00:45:29.310
So even if it was just through,

1050
00:45:29.310 --> 00:45:31.320
'cause they didn't have, their welcomes weren't coming,

1051
00:45:31.320 --> 00:45:36.320
they weren't in their formality, if that makes sense.

1052
00:45:36.600 --> 00:45:39.480
Like it was really interesting looking at it.

1053
00:45:39.480 --> 00:45:40.313
When was that? 2018.

1054
00:45:40.313 --> 00:45:41.880
So it's not that long ago.

1055
00:45:41.880 --> 00:45:44.400
But that protocol

1056
00:45:44.400 --> 00:45:47.343
wasn't set I suppose in form.

1057
00:45:48.450 --> 00:45:49.383
So we brought,

1058
00:45:50.220 --> 00:45:52.200
and they were deadly too.

1059
00:45:52.200 --> 00:45:54.090
They would sing songs and language.

1060
00:45:54.090 --> 00:45:55.500
There were academic versions,

1061
00:45:55.500 --> 00:45:56.940
there were Christian versions,

1062
00:45:56.940 --> 00:46:00.180
there were these diverse of,

1063
00:46:00.180 --> 00:46:02.670
and I was just like, "Oh, it's just like us."

1064
00:46:02.670 --> 00:46:04.530
Anyway, outside of Toronto,

1065
00:46:04.530 --> 00:46:05.670
there's a place called Bradford

1066
00:46:05.670 --> 00:46:09.540
and Philippe McGee and all the organiser,

1067
00:46:09.540 --> 00:46:10.980
Cloudy and everyone,

1068
00:46:10.980 --> 00:46:12.180
we all got on with DFAT

1069
00:46:12.180 --> 00:46:14.250
and we got a regional theatre

1070
00:46:14.250 --> 00:46:19.250
and we uprooted about 506 nations mob from their community.

1071
00:46:19.440 --> 00:46:21.000
And we bought 'em in these buses

1072
00:46:21.000 --> 00:46:24.420
and fed them and threw them into the theatre.

1073
00:46:24.420 --> 00:46:26.100
And they were just crying

1074
00:46:26.100 --> 00:46:31.100
because they'd never seen anything like a ceremony stylized

1075
00:46:31.410 --> 00:46:32.790
in this contemporary form.

1076
00:46:32.790 --> 00:46:36.360
But it was so core in its spirit, you know?

1077
00:46:36.360 --> 00:46:38.190
And they got so inspired

1078
00:46:38.190 --> 00:46:39.427
and they were like,

1079
00:46:39.427 --> 00:46:42.360
"We've been waiting for you fellas to come for years."

1080
00:46:42.360 --> 00:46:43.440
You know?

1081
00:46:43.440 --> 00:46:45.759
Anyway, so that, I dropped the 2018.

1082
00:46:45.759 --> 00:46:46.946
I better hurry up real quick, eh.

1083
00:46:46.946 --> 00:46:49.020
(audience laughing)

1084
00:46:49.020 --> 00:46:51.450
Well what I'm saying is that, you know,

1085
00:46:51.450 --> 00:46:53.463
it's not just about playing in the mainstream for us.

1086
00:46:53.463 --> 00:46:57.690
Like that sense of connections and family and meeting

1087
00:46:57.690 --> 00:46:59.340
and then meeting similarities

1088
00:46:59.340 --> 00:47:01.410
and then sharing and exchanging.

1089
00:47:01.410 --> 00:47:06.150
Like it just makes so much more sense

1090
00:47:06.150 --> 00:47:08.070
of why you have a culture foundation

1091
00:47:08.070 --> 00:47:10.683
that carries stories and yeah.

1092
00:47:11.910 --> 00:47:12.743
Olympics,

1093
00:47:13.710 --> 00:47:16.140
we were involved in the Olympics, a lot of stories there,

1094
00:47:16.140 --> 00:47:20.583
but we might be here to dawn.
(audience laughing)

1095
00:47:21.600 --> 00:47:22.560
I don't really think I'm funny.

1096
00:47:22.560 --> 00:47:23.393
I'm not really.

1097
00:47:24.630 --> 00:47:26.550
Djakapurra played an instrumental part.

1098
00:47:26.550 --> 00:47:28.950
We all remember him with that little Nikki Webster

1099
00:47:28.950 --> 00:47:30.030
and all them mob.

1100
00:47:30.030 --> 00:47:33.750
And I brought, uprooted 400 central desert women

1101
00:47:33.750 --> 00:47:35.790
from 33 clans in the central desert

1102
00:47:35.790 --> 00:47:37.230
who thought I was crazy

1103
00:47:37.230 --> 00:47:40.457
'cause they all had to come together and agree on one song.

1104
00:47:40.457 --> 00:47:43.140
And then when I-
(audience laughing)

1105
00:47:43.140 --> 00:47:44.838
And that took four years.

1106
00:47:44.838 --> 00:47:46.320
(audience laughing)

1107
00:47:46.320 --> 00:47:49.200
I'm not lying, it took four years.

1108
00:47:49.200 --> 00:47:51.330
You know, there's three dialects

1109
00:47:51.330 --> 00:47:55.560
and oh, they're all old women, they're passed on now.

1110
00:47:55.560 --> 00:47:58.830
But their kids still contact me

1111
00:47:58.830 --> 00:48:02.460
and Bangarra go out there sometimes to communities

1112
00:48:02.460 --> 00:48:03.960
and we do workshops and stuff.

1113
00:48:03.960 --> 00:48:07.140
But I remember one day I was in an old troop,

1114
00:48:07.140 --> 00:48:09.810
he was a gutted out troop at the back,

1115
00:48:09.810 --> 00:48:13.020
bloody, no back seats, it was just rough.

1116
00:48:13.020 --> 00:48:14.978
And they had a big (laughs),

1117
00:48:14.978 --> 00:48:17.640
they had a big tarp in the back.

1118
00:48:17.640 --> 00:48:18.990
And I sat on the ground

1119
00:48:18.990 --> 00:48:21.270
and there are no roads and they were driving me.

1120
00:48:21.270 --> 00:48:23.340
Nora, my traditional mother was up the front

1121
00:48:23.340 --> 00:48:25.680
and another driver, no roads,

1122
00:48:25.680 --> 00:48:26.880
they were making their roads

1123
00:48:26.880 --> 00:48:30.660
'cause we were going to a big riverbed.

1124
00:48:30.660 --> 00:48:33.480
And that's where we were meeting all the women.

1125
00:48:33.480 --> 00:48:36.230
This is the first time we were gathering the 400 women.

1126
00:48:37.440 --> 00:48:40.200
And it was like a week before they were coming to Sydney.

1127
00:48:40.200 --> 00:48:44.550
And this is after deciding they were all gonna tell me

1128
00:48:44.550 --> 00:48:46.590
they've decided, this was the point.

1129
00:48:46.590 --> 00:48:49.917
And we get close and Nora says (indistinct),

1130
00:48:51.180 --> 00:48:52.107
she told me to get in the back

1131
00:48:52.107 --> 00:48:56.100
and she told me to cover myself with the tarp.

1132
00:48:56.100 --> 00:48:58.890
I thought something was wrong culturally.

1133
00:48:58.890 --> 00:49:03.510
And we're going over these roads,

1134
00:49:03.510 --> 00:49:04.500
well they're not roads,

1135
00:49:04.500 --> 00:49:07.920
just potholes and dirt.

1136
00:49:07.920 --> 00:49:11.373
And I was in the back and I was just going up and down like,

1137
00:49:12.390 --> 00:49:14.520
and I'd stopped and I just started crying

1138
00:49:14.520 --> 00:49:15.470
'cause it was so...

1139
00:49:17.426 --> 00:49:21.120
I knew I was told to do something respectfully

1140
00:49:21.120 --> 00:49:23.280
and I just felt like a three-year-old boy.

1141
00:49:23.280 --> 00:49:26.651
And I just started crying

1142
00:49:26.651 --> 00:49:29.550
'cause I could hear traditional women singing.

1143
00:49:29.550 --> 00:49:32.670
And then, the engine stopped

1144
00:49:32.670 --> 00:49:34.667
and then I heard Nora talking in language.

1145
00:49:34.667 --> 00:49:35.640
(speaking in foreign language)

1146
00:49:35.640 --> 00:49:37.560
She told the woman to come around

1147
00:49:37.560 --> 00:49:39.280
and then she opened the back thing

1148
00:49:40.200 --> 00:49:41.703
and she giggled at me.

1149
00:49:43.770 --> 00:49:44.920
'Cause she just saw me.

1150
00:49:46.350 --> 00:49:48.000
She was telling me that was all women's country.

1151
00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:50.130
I wasn't allowed to see her.

1152
00:49:50.130 --> 00:49:53.430
So, but I said, but that's a lot of women's country

1153
00:49:53.430 --> 00:49:54.965
'cause that took like an hour.

1154
00:49:54.965 --> 00:49:57.537
(audience laughing)

1155
00:49:57.537 --> 00:50:00.300
She was laughing, she was laughing at me.

1156
00:50:00.300 --> 00:50:01.830
Anyway, she took me in

1157
00:50:01.830 --> 00:50:04.170
and then we went down to this river bed

1158
00:50:04.170 --> 00:50:06.300
and all the women were divided by,

1159
00:50:06.300 --> 00:50:09.480
in their clans by campfires.

1160
00:50:09.480 --> 00:50:12.060
And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

1161
00:50:12.060 --> 00:50:13.170
It was just,

1162
00:50:13.170 --> 00:50:15.670
and they were all calling me into country singing.

1163
00:50:17.430 --> 00:50:18.850
And I had butcher's paper

1164
00:50:20.100 --> 00:50:23.070
of what they were gonna look like on the Olympic field,

1165
00:50:23.070 --> 00:50:26.730
like from a wedge tail eagle point of view.

1166
00:50:26.730 --> 00:50:28.800
So it was like a kid's drawing of circles

1167
00:50:28.800 --> 00:50:32.160
and I was showing them that's one stage,

1168
00:50:32.160 --> 00:50:33.570
next stage, this stage, blah, blah blah.

1169
00:50:33.570 --> 00:50:34.403
Anyway,

1170
00:50:38.100 --> 00:50:38.933
they all decided,

1171
00:50:38.933 --> 00:50:40.440
and then the bad news was

1172
00:50:40.440 --> 00:50:42.990
that I told 'em the song can only go for a minute 40.

1173
00:50:42.990 --> 00:50:47.464
And they said, "But we dance from sunset to sunrise."

1174
00:50:47.464 --> 00:50:48.360
(all laughing)

1175
00:50:48.360 --> 00:50:51.270
You're taking us to Sydney to do an opening

1176
00:50:51.270 --> 00:50:52.710
and it's only a minute 40.

1177
00:50:52.710 --> 00:50:55.500
Anyway, but they all wanted to come to Sydney.

1178
00:50:55.500 --> 00:50:56.430
They all wanted to support,

1179
00:50:56.430 --> 00:50:58.838
they all wanted to give a gift to the Young Nation mob

1180
00:50:58.838 --> 00:51:00.450
'cause there are big politics back there.

1181
00:51:00.450 --> 00:51:02.460
I had Isabella Cour and Uncle Charles Perkins,

1182
00:51:02.460 --> 00:51:03.720
I had all of the mob.

1183
00:51:03.720 --> 00:51:06.120
I had to go and do a talk at the town hall tour,

1184
00:51:06.120 --> 00:51:07.320
the Black activists.

1185
00:51:07.320 --> 00:51:09.030
And they were like, "We need to boycott."

1186
00:51:09.030 --> 00:51:10.980
And I said, "Well why don't we do this?

1187
00:51:11.940 --> 00:51:13.590
Why don't we get Victoria Park

1188
00:51:13.590 --> 00:51:16.020
and we choreograph a boycott,

1189
00:51:16.020 --> 00:51:18.930
but we also have a spirit inside the stadium

1190
00:51:18.930 --> 00:51:21.720
to support that girl running in the 400 metres."

1191
00:51:21.720 --> 00:51:23.640
And they said (laughs),

1192
00:51:23.640 --> 00:51:25.357
Isabella looked at me and she said,

1193
00:51:25.357 --> 00:51:27.009
"You little smartass."

1194
00:51:27.009 --> 00:51:29.807
(all laughing)

1195
00:51:29.807 --> 00:51:31.057
And I thought, I thought,

1196
00:51:31.957 --> 00:51:34.470
"Oh lord, I'm gonna get away with this.

1197
00:51:34.470 --> 00:51:36.031
I think I'm gonna get away with."

1198
00:51:36.031 --> 00:51:38.610
But.
(audience laughing)

1199
00:51:38.610 --> 00:51:40.650
And we did, we had this great,

1200
00:51:40.650 --> 00:51:42.270
they was really deadly.

1201
00:51:42.270 --> 00:51:43.590
There was all Koori Radios

1202
00:51:43.590 --> 00:51:44.760
and all those radio stations,

1203
00:51:44.760 --> 00:51:46.500
and all the Black radio stations

1204
00:51:46.500 --> 00:51:48.150
and they took over Victorian Park

1205
00:51:48.150 --> 00:51:49.320
'cause they needed that.

1206
00:51:49.320 --> 00:51:52.133
The international media needed a place they could go to

1207
00:51:52.133 --> 00:51:53.220
'cause you've gotta have the opposite, you know.

1208
00:51:53.220 --> 00:51:55.530
But I said, "Hey, we're not,

1209
00:51:55.530 --> 00:51:58.470
we don't just confine as a race to one thing.

1210
00:51:58.470 --> 00:52:00.120
We're everything."

1211
00:52:00.120 --> 00:52:02.370
I said, "We can have a true spirit in here

1212
00:52:02.370 --> 00:52:04.920
and we can carry the Aboriginal flag here."

1213
00:52:04.920 --> 00:52:06.063
You know, like I said,

1214
00:52:07.117 --> 00:52:08.880
"We can't give up this opportunity."

1215
00:52:08.880 --> 00:52:10.420
And I'm glad we did it because

1216
00:52:12.210 --> 00:52:14.610
it was an amazing spirit

1217
00:52:14.610 --> 00:52:16.710
and especially for the lower nation people too.

1218
00:52:16.710 --> 00:52:18.510
And that's all them women.

1219
00:52:18.510 --> 00:52:21.269
They were (laughs), 'cause they had dust

1220
00:52:21.269 --> 00:52:24.093
and they got dust in their eyes and poor darlings.

1221
00:52:25.650 --> 00:52:26.483
But they loved it.

1222
00:52:26.483 --> 00:52:27.543
And you know what?

1223
00:52:28.410 --> 00:52:30.330
We got the army barracks in Alice Springs

1224
00:52:30.330 --> 00:52:31.500
'cause they had to travel,

1225
00:52:31.500 --> 00:52:33.780
it took them four days to get here

1226
00:52:33.780 --> 00:52:36.993
'cause Qantas had to fly them in five different planes.

1227
00:52:37.920 --> 00:52:39.630
So many of them.

1228
00:52:39.630 --> 00:52:41.190
And they all knew they would coming to the city,

1229
00:52:41.190 --> 00:52:43.500
but a big mob of them were with the minders

1230
00:52:43.500 --> 00:52:45.690
and they wanted to go the Canvas.

1231
00:52:45.690 --> 00:52:48.150
But one night they could hear them at the dorms

1232
00:52:48.150 --> 00:52:50.190
and they could hear people laughing in the toilets.

1233
00:52:50.190 --> 00:52:52.962
And then women were in the,

1234
00:52:52.962 --> 00:52:54.840
about nine of them were dying their hair

1235
00:52:54.840 --> 00:52:56.100
because they were going to the city.

1236
00:52:56.100 --> 00:52:58.860
It was so beautiful. (laughing)

1237
00:52:58.860 --> 00:53:00.750
And when I've seen Daisy and all them,

1238
00:53:00.750 --> 00:53:03.039
they had like purple, green hair and like-

1239
00:53:03.039 --> 00:53:03.872
(audience laughing)

1240
00:53:03.872 --> 00:53:04.705
And I was like, "Hey, you!"

1241
00:53:04.705 --> 00:53:06.720
They wanted to be real flash coming to the city.

1242
00:53:06.720 --> 00:53:09.210
Anyway, ah, I love that story.

1243
00:53:09.210 --> 00:53:11.700
Anyway, but you know,

1244
00:53:11.700 --> 00:53:14.280
'cause well, I reckon a good 90% of them

1245
00:53:14.280 --> 00:53:15.270
never been to the city

1246
00:53:15.270 --> 00:53:18.810
so they were coming to do their minute and 40 dance

1247
00:53:18.810 --> 00:53:21.240
and then it got ripped apart.

1248
00:53:21.240 --> 00:53:23.460
The media attacked and blamed them

1249
00:53:23.460 --> 00:53:24.780
for having their breast out

1250
00:53:24.780 --> 00:53:27.510
and their traditional print painting.

1251
00:53:27.510 --> 00:53:29.670
But they just all laughed.

1252
00:53:29.670 --> 00:53:32.310
They just said, can we go to the same...

1253
00:53:32.310 --> 00:53:37.310
They went to every St. Vincent de Paul shop in Newtown

1254
00:53:37.680 --> 00:53:41.070
and I bought them all those Chinese laundry bags

1255
00:53:41.070 --> 00:53:42.690
and I (indistinct).

1256
00:53:42.690 --> 00:53:45.300
We raided them all 'cause they just wanted them,

1257
00:53:45.300 --> 00:53:47.010
they loved them secondhand shops.

1258
00:53:47.010 --> 00:53:49.590
They've got some deadly clothes too.

1259
00:53:49.590 --> 00:53:52.050
They just wanted to go shopping after that opening on,

1260
00:53:52.050 --> 00:53:54.150
I took them down King Street and that was it.

1261
00:53:54.150 --> 00:53:57.330
And anyway,

1262
00:53:57.330 --> 00:53:58.320
beautiful moment.

1263
00:53:58.320 --> 00:53:59.153
I'm gonna hurry up.

1264
00:53:59.153 --> 00:53:59.986
Sorry about that.

1265
00:53:59.986 --> 00:54:03.300
This is Skin, this is my son Hunter when he was six.

1266
00:54:03.300 --> 00:54:05.370
And this is Alma Chris, beautiful Alma Chris.

1267
00:54:05.370 --> 00:54:06.513
And we performed.

1268
00:54:07.350 --> 00:54:09.240
During the Olympics, we created Skin

1269
00:54:09.240 --> 00:54:12.461
and Skin was a work of two halves.

1270
00:54:12.461 --> 00:54:14.544
It was shelter and spear.

1271
00:54:15.861 --> 00:54:18.611
And why I talk about this one is,

1272
00:54:19.710 --> 00:54:20.760
we had a beautiful relationship.

1273
00:54:20.760 --> 00:54:22.230
Djakapurra, Archie Roach,

1274
00:54:22.230 --> 00:54:24.000
uncle Archie guest with us.

1275
00:54:24.000 --> 00:54:26.550
Wayne Blair's first job in Sydney acting.

1276
00:54:26.550 --> 00:54:28.383
And my brother, Russy,

1277
00:54:29.640 --> 00:54:32.810
Sydney, Victor, Lewis...

1278
00:54:36.930 --> 00:54:37.763
That's it.

1279
00:54:38.910 --> 00:54:43.503
And that's Russell's son there, Remi.

1280
00:54:45.690 --> 00:54:47.670
We had a Torana on stage and the Torana,

1281
00:54:47.670 --> 00:54:50.310
we gutted it out and I wanted to flip it on its head

1282
00:54:50.310 --> 00:54:51.840
and its belly and its side

1283
00:54:51.840 --> 00:54:53.670
and let it have different variations.

1284
00:54:53.670 --> 00:54:55.290
And we all lived in this Torana on stage,

1285
00:54:55.290 --> 00:54:56.430
about a 40 minute work.

1286
00:54:56.430 --> 00:54:57.870
It was the first time I touched

1287
00:54:57.870 --> 00:55:00.090
really heavy social Black issues.

1288
00:55:00.090 --> 00:55:02.070
And it's the first time,

1289
00:55:02.070 --> 00:55:03.090
all the men sat around

1290
00:55:03.090 --> 00:55:04.440
and they were in the process with me.

1291
00:55:04.440 --> 00:55:05.550
And it was just,

1292
00:55:05.550 --> 00:55:07.170
and then the women were doing the same

1293
00:55:07.170 --> 00:55:08.160
with Djakapurra's sister,

1294
00:55:08.160 --> 00:55:11.013
or sorry, my other amala, Kathy Marika.

1295
00:55:14.310 --> 00:55:15.630
But just to hear Uncle Archie

1296
00:55:15.630 --> 00:55:18.780
and then Djakapurra's knowledge and his knowledge

1297
00:55:18.780 --> 00:55:20.771
and you know, we were all,

1298
00:55:20.771 --> 00:55:24.180
they were crying and they're sitting around us sharing

1299
00:55:24.180 --> 00:55:27.121
just men's healing, you know.

1300
00:55:27.121 --> 00:55:28.038
And it was,

1301
00:55:29.670 --> 00:55:30.900
we laid all that down

1302
00:55:30.900 --> 00:55:35.010
and then that was what started the mapping

1303
00:55:35.010 --> 00:55:38.133
of the sections of the pieces that we wanted to tell.

1304
00:55:39.570 --> 00:55:41.370
So when the audience get our show,

1305
00:55:41.370 --> 00:55:44.570
they're getting full process and heart, you know,

1306
00:55:44.570 --> 00:55:46.170
like that's what, yeah, I know it's stylized.

1307
00:55:46.170 --> 00:55:49.927
I know it's got costumes and lights and it's got scenic art.

1308
00:55:49.927 --> 00:55:51.090
I almost think the processes

1309
00:55:51.090 --> 00:55:52.940
are much better than the productions.

1310
00:55:54.481 --> 00:55:56.231
But we start with this blank canvas

1311
00:55:57.147 --> 00:55:57.980
and that's why I keep talking

1312
00:55:57.980 --> 00:55:59.370
about banging on about clanship,

1313
00:55:59.370 --> 00:56:00.990
you know, like I don't stand at the front.

1314
00:56:00.990 --> 00:56:02.460
It's not me creating it

1315
00:56:02.460 --> 00:56:05.400
or yes, I put my hand up to lead it

1316
00:56:05.400 --> 00:56:07.140
and curate it and shape it

1317
00:56:07.140 --> 00:56:11.160
and yeah, you're just leading and you're conducting,

1318
00:56:11.160 --> 00:56:12.690
like that Charles Baker,

1319
00:56:12.690 --> 00:56:17.010
you're just conducting the conversations and sharing it.

1320
00:56:17.010 --> 00:56:20.043
And this is Purra's last year, actually.

1321
00:56:22.020 --> 00:56:23.403
This is amazing.

1322
00:56:25.320 --> 00:56:26.870
We should put that in here, eh?

1323
00:56:29.760 --> 00:56:32.160
This is a beautiful shot, a great shot of Russy.

1324
00:56:34.710 --> 00:56:35.733
And he,

1325
00:56:38.370 --> 00:56:39.210
oh, Russel was amazing.

1326
00:56:39.210 --> 00:56:44.070
He just, we could just talk about social issues story

1327
00:56:44.070 --> 00:56:48.573
or the psychology behind addiction or,

1328
00:56:50.970 --> 00:56:53.100
we would, you know,

1329
00:56:53.100 --> 00:56:54.870
caring and having conversation about mental health

1330
00:56:54.870 --> 00:56:56.460
way back then

1331
00:56:56.460 --> 00:57:01.411
and a foot in each world and city and energy

1332
00:57:01.411 --> 00:57:02.244
and men's business.

1333
00:57:02.244 --> 00:57:03.077
What is men's business

1334
00:57:03.077 --> 00:57:07.653
in this humane moral construct of today?

1335
00:57:09.780 --> 00:57:13.350
Where is the femininity and the masculinity in men?

1336
00:57:13.350 --> 00:57:15.510
And those conversations were being had

1337
00:57:15.510 --> 00:57:17.553
in this very open discussion.

1338
00:57:19.290 --> 00:57:20.123
And,

1339
00:57:21.330 --> 00:57:22.163
yeah,

1340
00:57:23.580 --> 00:57:24.873
Russy really,

1341
00:57:26.580 --> 00:57:29.100
he just took so much on in that production

1342
00:57:29.100 --> 00:57:32.010
and then the next couple of years leading up,

1343
00:57:32.010 --> 00:57:35.190
he was a young father and had young kids.

1344
00:57:35.190 --> 00:57:36.873
And yeah.

1345
00:57:38.250 --> 00:57:40.500
This is "Bush" that we did in 2007.

1346
00:57:40.500 --> 00:57:42.020
When we lost Russell, we...

1347
00:57:44.953 --> 00:57:47.160
(Stephen sighs)

1348
00:57:47.160 --> 00:57:49.767
We did this celebration for him (sighs),

1349
00:57:53.975 --> 00:57:55.290
which was Bush.

1350
00:57:55.290 --> 00:57:57.850
And it was a ceremony from Yolnga family

1351
00:58:00.870 --> 00:58:03.810
in Arnhem Land, gave a gift to the company

1352
00:58:03.810 --> 00:58:05.043
and it was our,

1353
00:58:05.970 --> 00:58:07.530
even though we were quite open

1354
00:58:07.530 --> 00:58:10.233
and put it out in the mainstream, we were very public,

1355
00:58:11.670 --> 00:58:13.530
and we knew as a company

1356
00:58:13.530 --> 00:58:16.080
and we knew we were playing in the mainstream.

1357
00:58:16.080 --> 00:58:17.490
We knew we had a responsibility

1358
00:58:17.490 --> 00:58:20.700
and we knew we were public and we knew all of that.

1359
00:58:20.700 --> 00:58:23.820
And unfortunately, you know, your private personal

1360
00:58:23.820 --> 00:58:27.363
and what comes with that,

1361
00:58:29.430 --> 00:58:34.110
you know, it's just part of that initiation,

1362
00:58:34.110 --> 00:58:36.330
part of that process

1363
00:58:36.330 --> 00:58:38.253
and this work, "Bush" was,

1364
00:58:39.240 --> 00:58:40.263
yeah, it was,

1365
00:58:42.630 --> 00:58:44.730
in honour of him and his spirit

1366
00:58:44.730 --> 00:58:48.660
and yeah, it's one of my favourite productions and stories

1367
00:58:48.660 --> 00:58:51.750
because he was open about cleansing and healing

1368
00:58:51.750 --> 00:58:55.364
and sending one spirit off into that next spirit world

1369
00:58:55.364 --> 00:58:59.070
and making sure we're caring it and giving it strength

1370
00:58:59.070 --> 00:59:02.213
and yeah, we created that work for Russy.

1371
00:59:07.710 --> 00:59:09.153
Later on in our works,

1372
00:59:10.169 --> 00:59:11.002
I'm probably gonna jump through on that

1373
00:59:11.002 --> 00:59:13.050
'cause I've probably got only, what?

1374
00:59:13.050 --> 00:59:15.690
Two seconds?
(audience laughing)

1375
00:59:15.690 --> 00:59:16.743
Two minutes!

1376
00:59:18.120 --> 00:59:19.715
Wrap out!

1377
00:59:19.715 --> 00:59:21.510
(audience laughing)
Ah, okay.

1378
00:59:21.510 --> 00:59:22.890
This is "Mathinna."

1379
00:59:22.890 --> 00:59:24.873
We started to get to from our,

1380
00:59:26.550 --> 00:59:28.620
what we were realising after a couple of decades

1381
00:59:28.620 --> 00:59:32.760
was what I'm saying by a thematic point of view was

1382
00:59:32.760 --> 00:59:34.470
our experiences and our relationships

1383
00:59:34.470 --> 00:59:35.670
with mob around the country,

1384
00:59:35.670 --> 00:59:38.190
with experiences personally with ourselves,

1385
00:59:38.190 --> 00:59:39.480
what we were reconnecting to,

1386
00:59:39.480 --> 00:59:42.780
they were all becoming parts of inspirations for the themes

1387
00:59:42.780 --> 00:59:44.250
of what we wanted to create.

1388
00:59:44.250 --> 00:59:46.890
We were spitting out works, one a year, you know.

1389
00:59:46.890 --> 00:59:49.350
David was spitting out a composition,

1390
00:59:49.350 --> 00:59:51.958
70 minutes every year.

1391
00:59:51.958 --> 00:59:54.420
You know, not even Janet Jackson or Prince can do that.

1392
00:59:54.420 --> 00:59:58.050
You know, like, this is crazy, crazy.

1393
00:59:58.050 --> 00:59:59.250
And then by this stage,

1394
00:59:59.250 --> 01:00:01.200
we were doing historical works,

1395
01:00:01.200 --> 01:00:03.477
looking at, this is based on "Mathinna,"

1396
01:00:06.696 --> 01:00:08.070
a Tasmanian young girl.

1397
01:00:08.070 --> 01:00:09.930
We all know, so it's in the 1800s.

1398
01:00:09.930 --> 01:00:11.070
But what we were doing then

1399
01:00:11.070 --> 01:00:13.170
was that we were putting obviously the Black lens

1400
01:00:13.170 --> 01:00:14.820
and having it from our perspective,

1401
01:00:14.820 --> 01:00:18.330
working with Lola Greeno and Jimmy Everett

1402
01:00:18.330 --> 01:00:20.430
and amazing elders in Tasmania.

1403
01:00:20.430 --> 01:00:23.880
Once again, I got to work with mob down that way.

1404
01:00:23.880 --> 01:00:27.000
They said here, "Bangarra, you care for this story."

1405
01:00:27.000 --> 01:00:30.243
And they really helped look after this work.

1406
01:00:31.110 --> 01:00:32.070
Yeah, I'll have to jump through now.

1407
01:00:32.070 --> 01:00:32.943
Sorry about this.

1408
01:00:35.705 --> 01:00:37.050
Oh.

1409
01:00:37.050 --> 01:00:38.150
Oh, that's Alma, yeah.

1410
01:00:43.050 --> 01:00:45.180
Our experiences moved into the medium of film.

1411
01:00:45.180 --> 01:00:47.013
We did "Spear" in 2015,

1412
01:00:47.850 --> 01:00:48.720
gave us an opportunity.

1413
01:00:48.720 --> 01:00:52.470
It was the first film that had about 5% dialogue, sorry.

1414
01:00:52.470 --> 01:00:54.270
And the rest was just form and dance.

1415
01:00:54.270 --> 01:00:56.130
It was really hard to find references.

1416
01:00:56.130 --> 01:00:58.680
There were a few documentaries out.

1417
01:00:58.680 --> 01:01:01.380
Pina's documentary, which was a lot of dance

1418
01:01:01.380 --> 01:01:04.140
that was taken out of context and put on streets

1419
01:01:04.140 --> 01:01:05.253
and then locations.

1420
01:01:06.270 --> 01:01:08.220
But "Spear" just gave me my love of film

1421
01:01:08.220 --> 01:01:09.240
and working in film.

1422
01:01:09.240 --> 01:01:10.380
I've always wanted to work, you know,

1423
01:01:10.380 --> 01:01:11.610
choreographing "Sapphires"

1424
01:01:11.610 --> 01:01:13.200
and choreographing "Brand New Day,"

1425
01:01:13.200 --> 01:01:15.030
working with Rachel Perkins and working on film

1426
01:01:15.030 --> 01:01:16.890
and working on television.

1427
01:01:16.890 --> 01:01:18.660
It's an area I'm going into now

1428
01:01:18.660 --> 01:01:20.490
and I just really love the form.

1429
01:01:20.490 --> 01:01:22.290
But once again, you know, Bonnie Elliot,

1430
01:01:22.290 --> 01:01:26.100
female cinematographer got working with me,

1431
01:01:26.100 --> 01:01:27.240
lot of mob, Jake Nass,

1432
01:01:27.240 --> 01:01:29.853
lot of mob worked on this to bring it together.

1433
01:01:34.980 --> 01:01:36.390
These last two works,

1434
01:01:36.390 --> 01:01:41.280
this is our work, "Nyapanyapo", from 2016.

1435
01:01:43.020 --> 01:01:48.020
and Nyapanyapo Yunupingu who we lost,

1436
01:01:48.570 --> 01:01:50.920
I think it's almost two years now, three years,

1437
01:01:51.930 --> 01:01:53.820
was an amazing Yolŋu artist.

1438
01:01:53.820 --> 01:01:57.120
And I wanted to do a dance response

1439
01:01:57.120 --> 01:01:59.880
to her process and her works,

1440
01:01:59.880 --> 01:02:02.760
her meditative style of those long lines

1441
01:02:02.760 --> 01:02:04.607
and inhaling and exhaling breaths

1442
01:02:04.607 --> 01:02:07.080
of the way she used to do her work.

1443
01:02:07.080 --> 01:02:08.070
And I still watch her.

1444
01:02:08.070 --> 01:02:11.610
And this was a work dedicated to her.

1445
01:02:11.610 --> 01:02:14.040
It's also the time when I lost my other brother, David,

1446
01:02:14.040 --> 01:02:15.810
around this time in 2016.

1447
01:02:15.810 --> 01:02:20.373
And unfortunately, he passed before we did this work.

1448
01:02:21.960 --> 01:02:25.143
And I mean, David, you know, I worked with David on,

1449
01:02:26.220 --> 01:02:27.487
oh, we told David's stories,

1450
01:02:27.487 --> 01:02:30.900
"Page Eight," his play that we told.

1451
01:02:30.900 --> 01:02:34.140
But David, as a musician and the work I would do with him

1452
01:02:34.140 --> 01:02:37.680
and, you know, he'd be locked in his cave, in his music.

1453
01:02:37.680 --> 01:02:39.540
I mean, I would have dancers in the studio, you know,

1454
01:02:39.540 --> 01:02:40.590
he would be on his own.

1455
01:02:40.590 --> 01:02:42.360
So I had to go and make sure he was okay.

1456
01:02:42.360 --> 01:02:45.960
But sometimes I'd go in and he'd have a wig on

1457
01:02:45.960 --> 01:02:49.590
and he'd be real corked up.

1458
01:02:49.590 --> 01:02:52.650
He had lipstick on and he'd just stir me up

1459
01:02:52.650 --> 01:02:55.080
and then someday, if he was bogged down,

1460
01:02:55.080 --> 01:02:58.312
he would just put on another performance, you know,

1461
01:02:58.312 --> 01:03:00.750
and we just had this click

1462
01:03:00.750 --> 01:03:03.310
and we would just tell stories with each other

1463
01:03:04.699 --> 01:03:05.670
and then, I don't know,

1464
01:03:05.670 --> 01:03:08.400
I'd come back and he'd have four different versions

1465
01:03:08.400 --> 01:03:12.480
of when the wet season would come, how close, how far?

1466
01:03:12.480 --> 01:03:15.510
And it was just amazing how he would create

1467
01:03:15.510 --> 01:03:18.480
and you know, his playlist,

1468
01:03:18.480 --> 01:03:21.180
his music is in my bloody head,

1469
01:03:21.180 --> 01:03:23.550
in my playlist, in my head constantly.

1470
01:03:23.550 --> 01:03:27.303
And he was the hum of the land of all Bangarra stories.

1471
01:03:29.640 --> 01:03:30.930
Later on we did "Bennelong,"

1472
01:03:30.930 --> 01:03:32.797
once again, another historical work,

1473
01:03:32.797 --> 01:03:37.667
"Bennelong" and "Dark Emu", 2017 and 2018,

1474
01:03:41.398 --> 01:03:42.810
were Bangarra's biggest ever works.

1475
01:03:42.810 --> 01:03:45.150
So we played to over close to 70,000 people

1476
01:03:45.150 --> 01:03:45.983
around the country.

1477
01:03:45.983 --> 01:03:46.870
It's all "Bennelong"

1478
01:03:48.540 --> 01:03:49.920
and "Dark Emu."

1479
01:03:49.920 --> 01:03:51.603
We were at the end of a decade, you know,

1480
01:03:51.603 --> 01:03:54.180
like we were hitting the end of our third decade.

1481
01:03:54.180 --> 01:03:56.880
We're in the beginning of our fourth decade now.

1482
01:03:56.880 --> 01:03:58.593
And David passing,

1483
01:03:59.670 --> 01:04:01.650
I had to reflect a lot too, you know,

1484
01:04:01.650 --> 01:04:02.943
like I had to step away.

1485
01:04:03.984 --> 01:04:04.817
And anyway.

1486
01:04:07.470 --> 01:04:08.330
Yeah...

1487
01:04:10.860 --> 01:04:12.300
We were travelling overseas,

1488
01:04:12.300 --> 01:04:14.760
we were touring through the world

1489
01:04:14.760 --> 01:04:17.130
and you just think of the engine

1490
01:04:17.130 --> 01:04:19.800
and I think I was in denial, like when David passed,

1491
01:04:19.800 --> 01:04:20.633
that was a big part.

1492
01:04:20.633 --> 01:04:21.810
Russy passed, a big part.

1493
01:04:21.810 --> 01:04:22.643
But David,

1494
01:04:25.440 --> 01:04:26.273
I was in denial

1495
01:04:26.273 --> 01:04:31.273
and I thought I was utilising creativity for healing.

1496
01:04:31.470 --> 01:04:33.423
Yes, it is a medicine, but,

1497
01:04:35.490 --> 01:04:38.407
yeah, I didn't know what to do.

1498
01:04:38.407 --> 01:04:41.340
You know, that was where I felt safe was

1499
01:04:41.340 --> 01:04:42.810
to keep telling stories.

1500
01:04:42.810 --> 01:04:46.113
And so doing "Bennelong" and "Dark Emu", I think was,

1501
01:04:47.640 --> 01:04:51.393
yeah, it was me screaming out to myself, I think,

1502
01:04:53.280 --> 01:04:56.560
pushing these works through and Bangarra success

1503
01:04:59.094 --> 01:05:00.570
and it made me just think, "Well what is it all for?

1504
01:05:00.570 --> 01:05:01.403
Who's it for?

1505
01:05:01.403 --> 01:05:02.790
What's it for?"

1506
01:05:02.790 --> 01:05:04.953
This machine that just keeps going.

1507
01:05:05.820 --> 01:05:06.653
So anyway,

1508
01:05:08.190 --> 01:05:09.023
it's probably one of the,

1509
01:05:09.023 --> 01:05:11.430
it's got to this work and I think it was,

1510
01:05:11.430 --> 01:05:14.190
I knew I wanted to step down as artistic director.

1511
01:05:14.190 --> 01:05:15.870
I love creating.

1512
01:05:15.870 --> 01:05:18.750
I love nothing more than to tell stories.

1513
01:05:18.750 --> 01:05:22.950
Oh, I've got the biggest cave of stories to tell.

1514
01:05:22.950 --> 01:05:25.364
You ever want me to do a story or come and do a story?

1515
01:05:25.364 --> 01:05:27.180
No. (laughing)

1516
01:05:27.180 --> 01:05:28.950
But yeah, I love telling stories.

1517
01:05:28.950 --> 01:05:30.420
My son's already signed me up.

1518
01:05:30.420 --> 01:05:32.880
He takes my ideas, writes 'em down.

1519
01:05:32.880 --> 01:05:33.780
Next minute, I read it.

1520
01:05:33.780 --> 01:05:35.854
I said, "Oh, I was talking about that last week."

1521
01:05:35.854 --> 01:05:37.440
(audience laughing)

1522
01:05:37.440 --> 01:05:40.167
And he said, "No, that's ours dad, you and I's story."

1523
01:05:41.040 --> 01:05:44.910
He took my money, got a ABN and opened a production company.

1524
01:05:44.910 --> 01:05:48.030
I said, "You don't even have a bloody production model.

1525
01:05:48.030 --> 01:05:49.800
You don't know what you're doing." (laughing)

1526
01:05:49.800 --> 01:05:52.140
He's very keen to kidnap me

1527
01:05:52.140 --> 01:05:53.730
and take me into his world

1528
01:05:53.730 --> 01:05:56.677
and continue to tell stories.

1529
01:05:56.677 --> 01:06:00.183
"Sand Song," oh "Sand Song," the beautiful work.

1530
01:06:03.248 --> 01:06:05.880
(sighs) We did that through Covid,

1531
01:06:05.880 --> 01:06:08.310
opened in '21, brought it back in '22.

1532
01:06:08.310 --> 01:06:11.850
Once again, this was a gift to our wonderful

1533
01:06:11.850 --> 01:06:14.960
Ningali Lawford-Wolf, who we lost in 2019,

1534
01:06:14.960 --> 01:06:16.740
an amazing actress and a friend.

1535
01:06:16.740 --> 01:06:19.380
And she always wanted to do stories from home

1536
01:06:19.380 --> 01:06:20.910
in the Kimberley's,

1537
01:06:20.910 --> 01:06:22.470
Always wanted to do a story for Bangarra.

1538
01:06:22.470 --> 01:06:23.940
She acted in Bangarra stories,

1539
01:06:23.940 --> 01:06:25.770
she sung up Bangarra stories

1540
01:06:25.770 --> 01:06:30.660
and she always, Walmajarri home, back home,

1541
01:06:30.660 --> 01:06:32.220
great sandy desert.

1542
01:06:32.220 --> 01:06:35.160
And we connected with her family after her passing

1543
01:06:35.160 --> 01:06:36.870
and wanted to give that gift back to her.

1544
01:06:36.870 --> 01:06:39.693
And "Sand Song" is a gift to her and her family.

1545
01:06:42.300 --> 01:06:44.730
I went back home, 2022, I did a work,

1546
01:06:44.730 --> 01:06:45.600
it never came to camera.

1547
01:06:45.600 --> 01:06:46.800
It only went to bloody Sydney.

1548
01:06:46.800 --> 01:06:47.633
What's going on?

1549
01:06:47.633 --> 01:06:51.900
No, I did a work called "Wudjung, Not the Past."

1550
01:06:51.900 --> 01:06:56.550
And it was language from my dad's country,

1551
01:06:56.550 --> 01:06:57.690
Yugambeh Nation Language,

1552
01:06:57.690 --> 01:06:59.883
Bundjalung Nation Language,

1553
01:07:00.900 --> 01:07:04.560
a festival piece, 26 people, actors.

1554
01:07:04.560 --> 01:07:05.910
It was a musical, it was an opera,

1555
01:07:05.910 --> 01:07:07.053
it was a ceremony.

1556
01:07:08.280 --> 01:07:09.690
And it was just a different way

1557
01:07:09.690 --> 01:07:11.490
of bringing all those forms together,

1558
01:07:11.490 --> 01:07:12.600
which I've always loved to do.

1559
01:07:12.600 --> 01:07:17.370
And it's gonna be in Brisbane in '24 at their new venue.

1560
01:07:17.370 --> 01:07:19.648
I might not been allowed to say that anyway,

1561
01:07:19.648 --> 01:07:21.360
(audience laughing)
(Stephen chuckles)

1562
01:07:21.360 --> 01:07:23.070
But we never got it to Canberra

1563
01:07:23.070 --> 01:07:24.770
and we should bring it to Canberra

1564
01:07:26.280 --> 01:07:29.310
and it's a beautiful story for my dad's country, yeah.

1565
01:07:29.310 --> 01:07:30.753
And look, this is,

1566
01:07:31.830 --> 01:07:34.548
I'm rushing now 'cause we've got a children's show

1567
01:07:34.548 --> 01:07:36.630
called, "Waru," the first Bangarra children's show

1568
01:07:36.630 --> 01:07:39.420
that I directed and wrote with Hunter, my son,

1569
01:07:39.420 --> 01:07:42.000
and Alma Chris and Sunny Townsend

1570
01:07:42.000 --> 01:07:45.330
and Lenora Didi and "Waru", the great turtle.

1571
01:07:45.330 --> 01:07:47.580
I'll go back again 'cause I love that turtle.

1572
01:07:48.480 --> 01:07:50.223
It's going on the road, regional,

1573
01:07:53.760 --> 01:07:54.593
this year.

1574
01:07:54.593 --> 01:07:56.460
"Waru" is going around.

1575
01:07:56.460 --> 01:07:58.023
And this is the company.

1576
01:07:59.250 --> 01:08:01.443
This is Fran and I at the end of last year.

1577
01:08:02.670 --> 01:08:05.010
Oh that's with Djakapurra and Alma.

1578
01:08:05.010 --> 01:08:07.037
God, we all look deadly there, eh?

1579
01:08:07.037 --> 01:08:10.650
(audience laughing)

1580
01:08:10.650 --> 01:08:13.170
And then, you know, the company now is in,

1581
01:08:13.170 --> 01:08:14.700
Fran is the artistic director

1582
01:08:14.700 --> 01:08:16.320
and she's doing a new work this year

1583
01:08:16.320 --> 01:08:17.913
and it's coming to camera soon.

1584
01:08:19.770 --> 01:08:21.720
You know, I'm having a little break getting away

1585
01:08:21.720 --> 01:08:22.553
and they were like,

1586
01:08:22.553 --> 01:08:24.180
"Oh, you can still have a little hot desk down here."

1587
01:08:24.180 --> 01:08:27.730
And I was like, "No, no, go and have a break, I think."

1588
01:08:29.031 --> 01:08:29.940
I've got two granddaughters,

1589
01:08:29.940 --> 01:08:31.473
a four-year-old or one,

1590
01:08:32.940 --> 01:08:34.620
Mila Sophia's the four-year-old.

1591
01:08:34.620 --> 01:08:36.270
She already sings and dances

1592
01:08:36.270 --> 01:08:39.900
and she tells poppy she's got stories for me.

1593
01:08:39.900 --> 01:08:40.800
And you know what?

1594
01:08:40.800 --> 01:08:44.490
I'm gonna leave on the note of my grandchildren. (laughing)

1595
01:08:44.490 --> 01:08:45.960
Hey look, I'm sorry about that.

1596
01:08:45.960 --> 01:08:47.793
That was a little bit long.

1597
01:08:48.631 --> 01:08:51.714
(audience clapping)