This project took place in Lajamanu, a Warlpiri community on the top of the Tanami Desert. Administered by Browns Mart Community Arts it commenced April 1998. Funded by the Australia Council (Touring and Access, and Aboriginal performing Arts Board).

The residency involved three arts workers and set out to develop theatrical and visual arts skills with the younger community members, culminating in a performance and tour of other Warlpiri speaking communities and schools in Alice Springs in June 1989. A further tour to Katherine schools, Darwin, and small communities occurred in October.

Illustration: Tim Newth

In the interim period Tim Newth was invited to work with the community (Funded by Brown’s Mart Community Arts, Lajamanu school, and the Arts Council) to carry out mural and banner projects. (See Visual Arts Residency)

The Association between Lajamanu began in 1988 when the Corrugated Iron Youth Theatre visited in May 1988, touring a performance of one-act plays written by young Territorians in the Living In Isolation. Amongst the plays was Desert Boy, a group negotiated play created by mid to upper primary school children at Lajamanu School.

Desert Boy was met with great success at Lajamanu. The non-aboriginal actors needed to learn some Warlpiri in order to perform the Warlpiri speaking parts. A mature Warlpiri woman resident in Darwin, Mary Rockman Napurrula, gave instruction in Warlpiri. The involvement of Warlpiri people from the start of the project was important, as the principle of mutual education and cooperation was established. This approach was also extremely successful. There was an electric thrill that travelled through the Warlpiri audience, particularly the excited cries uttered by the older women, as the younger actors burst into Warlpiri. One was left with the feeling that something significant had taken place.

Following the success of Desert Boy, and its great popularity amongst the children, the school council requested that three artists work within the school community to develop some traditional and modern material into contemporary dramatic performance. In May 1989 Tim Newth (Designer), Janet Robertson (Director), and Sarah Calver (Choreographer) arrived in Lajamanu to begin their residency.

Tim collaborated with senior boys to create a spectacular giant flying ant puppet that was eventually used to lead the annual Darwin Bougainvillea Festival Street Parade. Tim, while not a dancer, also assisted Sarah in the development of dance routines as a ‘model’ for the boys. This was crucial in order to achieve male input into the project.

Sarah worked with girls on the creation of contemporary dance routines that incorporated some traditional elements. Janet workshopped poetry and stories written by both children and adults, creating dramatic text that incorporated dance.

The resulting show was toured twice. First to Centralian community schools and Alice Springs, and then several months later to the North, including a greater number of predominantly non-aboriginal schools. On each occasion the show received a very positive reception.

I believe this project has set the groundwork of friendship, skills, and trust between three individual artists and the Lajamanu community. It has in a small way reinforced the importance and pride built from people performing and communicating through dance, drama, and visual art. This has been of particular importance for the young people, for although this project did not present people traditionally, it used the skills and style of performance through those who performed to reinforce a Warlpiri culture.

I recommend a further development and building on the project by Sarah and myself returning to the community to put together another tour based strongly around movement skills. The addition of a musician to this tem would be of great benefit.
This would again be put together over 8 weeks.

Personally, I feel a strong need to spend a much longer period (6 months) within this community, not working towards a set performance/tour, but working on the sharing of visual arts skills and developing an understanding of this Warlpiri Culture.

Not often is an artist given the opportunity to work within the moment and allowed to be totally true to one’s self. This community and its people are giving me that opportunity. What product comes out of it I am not sure but my heart says go for it.

Tim Newth

Prior to the Tour Tim, myself, and Ken Conway visited Lajamanu for a few days to gather ideas from the community with respect to the direction of the project-to-be. The input was mainly received from members of the school council as well as Yapa and white teachers.
Our time spent there researching material for the performance could have spread over many days but unfortunately none of us had that much time available due to current projects.

On returning to Lajamanu, my main aim was to see what contemporary dance the people enjoyed and to extend my own knowledge of traditional dance so as to combine the two.

Finding a starting point for my work had not been easy but with the help and inspiration I received from the school it all fell into place. Every class in the school amazed me and within a week of being there the children and I knew what moves we liked better than others. Standing in the school ground and being surrounded by children still practicing certain moves or imitating me and my gestures inspired me and gave me faith in what I had to offer these people. The material I used in workshops was technically difficult, energetic, rhythmical and generally contained more material than I would normally teach - but then the quickness and ease these children displayed for picking up new steps made it easy for me to explore their limits and give us both new challenges.

The two main groups I chose to work with were the two senior groups of the school, not because the others weren’t as talented, but because I felt that on tour these children would not only be more responsible, but be able to participate directly in the sharing that would happen at the places we would tour. They were also the groups that understood what was going to be expected of them the most.

The senior girls’ class consisted of 20, but only 10-12 girls participated in the first workshop as the others were ‘too shame’. This resulted in a natural selection process and those who wanted to participate in workshops were given the option of continuing towards the performance. Hence, the final group of girls consisted of those who had decided to be part of the tour.

As workshops progressed we as a group chose movements we enjoyed from class, and started to put them into a formation to a song by Tracey Chapman, an artist who became very popular in Lajamanu, as only a few had heard of her prior to my workshops. The dance piece consisted of mainly modern dance involving partner work, group work, floor work, and movements the girls created. The other dance piece was the ‘African’ which consisted of African dance, modern dance, and some of their own traditional dance - it was a favourite amongst the community in general.

Besides working on the two dance pieces we also explored creative dance and choreographic skills during workshops which helped in the formation of the two poems Janet and I worked on.

The boys/young men of Lajamanu are not only proud and powerful but also extremely athletic. For this reason, all of my workshops consisted of high energy routines and jumps. Like most boys, rap dancing was their main forte and they would not hesitate in showing you the various tricks they had taught themselves. I must admit that ‘Michael Jackson’ and others would have been put to shame by some of these talented youngsters. Not really being a rap dancer, I simply abstracted some of my own movements to suit the style of the dance and to the sounds of ‘Beastie Boys’, whom the boys thought were great. We developed a piece comprised of everyone’s movement - including older boys’ movements who wanted to dance but not perform. The piece was quite exceptional but not as much so as the boys from Grade 5 who learnt it within two weeks, as my original group of young men decided they didn’t want to perform.

Like the senior girls the boys loved the African movements we did and due to this I created a piece for them comprising African, traditional and modern. It was only a short piece but one enjoyed by many and it showed off their strength not to mention their wonderful rhythm.

Tim and myself worked with the Senior boys and although I was in charge of the workshop it wouldn’t have been possible without the help of a male who showed enthusiasm towards my dance. Tim’s involvement in this workshop was excellent and much appreciated.

What both groups managed to achieve was not only a credit to themselves but to the community as a whole. The main driving force behind our sometimes monotonous and tiring rehearsals was that we wanted to share something with other Warlpiri communities and the kids wanted to make Lajamanu proud. I think they more than achieved their goal. The concentration, discipline, creativity and commitment this touring group showed me was more than inspiring.

The quickness with which they developed their performance skills and identified with one another created a strong bond between all the performers, which resulted in a show where everyone was not only equal but needed. As the main artist who worked with them, I feel that the relationship between us was one of trust, understanding, acceptance and fun.

My time and work in Lajamanu was very special to me as the Warlpiri are amazing people. Our sharing within the community took time due to certain barriers that existed between Kartiya (white man) and Yapa (Aboriginals). The women, who have not totally lost their ‘role’ appear to be the main strength in the community, especially in their own culture, but then I only did ‘women’s’ things so I can’t honestly speak for the men. The time Janet and I spent with the women during their preparation ceremonies and dancing was like no other ‘sharing’ I’ve been to. The women were open and inquisitive as we were unlike most Kartiya women - not many white women rolled on the ground or were as physical as we were in our work - hence our common interest in dance drew us closer together. However, many of the old women only spoke Warlpiri and our knowledge wasn’t wonderful so communication at times mainly consisted of sign language or guessing. For this reason, I feel the importance of stressing future projects cater for the language difference and hopefully include an Aboriginal person to work alongside the artists.

Janet and I seemed to do things that were correct for our ‘skin’ relationship without realising. For example, we danced together without knowing that Nampijinpa (Janet) and Nangala (myself) always danced together. Through watching and understanding the women’s dances and stories we saw how our own dance based on our reflections of the desert resembled theirs. Our learning was aided, but a lot came from just being amidst it all - our desert dance for that reason is very sacred and special to us as it holds so much that we shared with these women.

Sarah Calver

Director

Janet Robertson

Choreographer

Sarah Calver

Designer

Tim Newth

Fifteen students age ranging from 8 – 15, with two students assisting the production.