The work has been nurtured, created and set up by elders for over 200 years and now we have the opportunity to appear on the mainstage and in mainstage venues. In fact Belvoir Street was the first and only theatre company that gave us a space in Sydney in 1987 after we started the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust in the mid-80s. We actually had to go to Melbourne to the Victorian Arts Centre to do productions. So now, many of those people open their doors. When would we have had a festival and the opportunity to showcase what we are about? Just who would have financed over four million dollars for an Aboriginal festival had we not had the Olympics? It's a big ask on a very small budget and it's a huge risk.
Pushing for venues such as the Opera House and the Sydney Theatre Company Wharf Theatre was questioned by many and not only in the Aboriginal community, but my big question is; do we always preach to the converted? Should we work on the fringe, on the edge and remain alien to what is labelled the mainstream? Hell, no. Don't get me wrong; I think that the work, for example, in the arts that happens in my own community is more than getting a production or exhibition up. The hope that I see in young faces and the knowledge of our elders and the usefulness, the self-empowerment that comes from projects developed and organisations being set up at grass-roots level fills me with so much pride that perhaps we could sit back very complacently and think we have achieved. I went home for the rehearsal of a production we had in the Festival called Waiting for Godot, which was a production that was translated into the Bundjalung language. When this was in progress, in rehearsals, people were just coming in off the streets, little old ladies doing their shopping, never been in a theatre in their lives, but they were simply coming because they could hear their native tongue spoken for about the first time in forty years. Because in those days, it was against the law, so if you were teaching your children language there was a fear of the Protection Board taking your children, so that fear was far too great for most people to continue. However, it was documented by linguists in the '70s and the Bundjalung language is now taught at Monash University... we're trying to get it back home. But to see these little old people and to see young people - nothing to do with the arts - that are actually fulfilled when you hear your own language. It gives you something that I can't explain in words. So I sat there and looked and I thought: shouldn't their voices be taken to often the deaf ears - and the Redhead,2 perhaps? Because they are the ones who need to hear what our dreaming cycles are about in the '90s.
The Olympic Arts Festivals established a policy very early on; that of Authorship and Control. In fact, I think they thought I was a bit mad when I kept pushing it, but I dug my heels in because I thought this was something that has to be set up, some sort of legacy and precedent. This is to say that the authorship of the product, activity or event and the control of its development and presentation should be in indigenous hands. This guideline was an aspiration, a goal to strive for and it did not inhibit collaborations or joint artistic ventures between indigenous groups and non-indigenous groups and companies. On the contrary, it encouraged and made them celebratory and unique.
Now, in hindsight there's probably a lot of things that we would change; we would have had a longer production period. But, one of the examples was the Aboriginal and Islander Dance Theatre and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra doing a production, The Edge of the Sacred. This was a huge ask from two very, very different companies, different genres, but here was a national orchestra, who most of us believed have been very conservative; their approach to work was that they wanted to wear their blacks - so to speak - and they had a great reputation. But they were prepared to don costumes and have performers dance amongst their instruments. Now this type of relationship can only develop a new Australian approach and combination of work. And, they took into account Aboriginal structures.
The Festival was also committed to a wider understanding of Aboriginal culture. We produced a Protocol Manual was developed, basically addressing issues when dealing with remote, urban and rural communities - terminology, language use. This was a very practical guide - it was pretty basic - but for the staff it was incredibly useful.
All indigenous performers and artists, their language and nation groups were highlighted in all programmes. There were free programmes for every event. With the Festival of the Dreaming's emphasis on the cultures and arts of NSW, the relevant use of language, particularly that of the Sydney region was fostered, reclaimed and encouraged; the Gamarada programme was introduced - Gamarada (Kamarada) is a Sydney word meaning 'friend'. It's a protocol programme with great initiative and magnitude of long term importance. By having our elder statespeople representing us at major Olympic events puts the focus on Australia's First Nation Peoples as well as giving national and international recognition. If you go to New Zealand, for example, and they've got some major event on, big VIPS, and they've got their Prime Minister and Governor General and all that up there, they'll always have either a Maori Queen or whoever, representing them who sits on the same level as those dignitaries. We still don't have that in Australia and I'm hoping that by the year 2000 our elder statespeople will be recognised along with the governor generals who will sit amongst them and the Prime Minister will probably sit over there. [Roberts indicated the far side of the room]
Research of Sydney Aboriginal names, places, history and Olympic venues was also undertaken. A young Wiradjuri group from Dubbo called Janagrra performed - a group that had not performed outside their community. They'd only performed in community halls, probably to about 50 people. But what encouraged me to select them for the programme was that they were very young and they were very raw but they had done their research. They had reclaimed a number of dances and steps that had not been seen for many years - which was uniquely NSW. This year celebrates ninety-nine years of ethnographics. We've always said we were the most written, talked and filmed people in the world, and it's true. You should see what they've got in archives. But I believe there is a need for resources to be established to access archives and research dance, music, stories and so forth. Anthropologists have always had a bad name and left an almost unpleasant taste in our mouths. However, they have left our generation an enormous legacy we need to be reclaiming. For example, where I come from art styles are all parallel lines and geometric shapes, rather than say the central desert dot paintings, and what I'd like to see is that there are areas that are set up so people can research that and start painting traditionally what they would have been painting, say, 150 years ago.
Our next move within the arts is to produce a document outlining cultural issues and different approaches to work and structures of rehearsals and schedules. Many traditional dance companies simply do not perform. They are dancing ceremony. I'll just tell you this little anecdote. For the Awakening Ceremony we were doing the rehearsal and Djakapurra had just come down and he'd just done a ceremony up there, so he was quite emotional and so forth and we wanted him to sing the particular three song cycle that he was singing so the didjeridu players could get an idea of when we were going to place the smoking, because they all come at particular sections, and, you know, if that was John Farnham or something he'd sing a few beats and you'd get the gist of what the music's about. But Djakapurra couldn't do that. He actually had to go through the whole song cycle as he would, as if he was doing it for a ceremony. And by the end of it, the tears were in his eyes and it was just one of the most moving experiences and it was outside the STC3 - we were sitting around there - it was very ironic and a great sight.
Mimi is a good model of a collaborative work involving remote, urban and rural communities, and Stalker's theatre company, a non-indigenous company, who truly, I believe, need to be congratulated for their awareness and their whole growth during this process. Travelling to a remote community can be a very foreign experience and vice versa for those arriving in a city. A number of the indigenous dancers and musicians were urban-based. As well, we had a group from the Kunwinku people of Arnhem Land. Some had not been on a plane, they had never seen a lift, and English was certainly not their first language spoken. Budgets increase when you look at custodians of stories, dance and elders who need to accompany work, as well as liaisons and interpreters. They are just as vital and important as, say, a lighting designer is to a production.
Sorry business4 has to be taken into account, and particularly from remote communities, and in fact we had a bit of sorry business during the Festival, sadly, but because people were so aware of it, the whole production management was so aware of it, we managed to work through it. With Raymond Blanco who was the choreographer of Mimi and worked with Rachel Swain, we sat down with the elders and talked about this, because if there was something that did occur in the community, then the whole troupe would have to go back and we couldn't really do the season without them. So Raymond got permission from the elders to learn the dances so that if that was to occur, he could then re-teach some urban-based dancers those particular dances. There's ways of working around it.
Smaller companies and resources often depend on community service organisations for the use of administration and resources. Issues of funding - and when we talk about funding cuts, we're not just referring to the arts - in regards to housing, health and education, they can determine in a very small community the life of that project.
Very few Aboriginal actors have trained at our national institutions, bar perhaps a handful of actors. Justine Saunders has done one year with NIDA5, the late Vivien Walker had been to NIDA and Kylie Belling was at the VCA6 - are just a few who come to mind. It is really only since the beginning of the '90s that we have seen a new generation of WAAPA7, NIDA or VCA graduates.
So many like Deborah Mailman and Wesley Enoch, who was recently the Artistic Director of Kooemba Jdarra, are often producing, writing and operating the administration, and at the same time performing on stage. We are also at the point, as indigenous artists, of looking at many issues that affect our lives: alcohol, petrol sniffing, domestic violence, etc. There is still this fear from the community of airing our dirty laundry, so to speak. Yet as artists I believe we have a moral obligation to future generations not to rose-colour our lives. And it's a big ask for those of us working within the industry and often many feel the pressure and the pressure politically from the community and are suffering burnout. We need the financial support, but we also need the emotional and physical support from all sectors of the arts community.
When it comes to critics, and it's an issue I have raised a number of times pre-the Dreaming, I often read reviews that to me seemed to be overviews rather than reviewing of the particular work. And I wonder, is it just a fear of being labelled racist? This level of acceptability perpetuates mediocrity and you know why? Because you've got companies who have been doing work for years and their review is all very glowing, but the work is mediocre, but they think if they can get to this level, then they're doing okay. However, if they were a white company the critics would slam them because they have to get to this level. We need to be able to accept honest criticism from both sides.
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