Celebrating Tracks’ 20-year relationship with the senior women dancers of the Northern Territory, Tracks reunites two great local cultural icons – The Grey Panthers and the Yawalyu Ceremonial Dancers of Lajamanu. LIPSTICK & OCHRE is a journey into the spirit of our land, guided through life and time by the collective wisdom and experience of these two groups of women and their guests. Don’t be fooled into thinking growing old is an entirely serious matter though. This is a story told with a laugh, some earthy mischief and a spot of mayhem…

To view the LIPSTICK & OCHRE TVC CLICK HERE
1.1MB Quicktime Movie

View the promo CLICK HERE (Quicktime Movie 4.5MB)

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Photo: Mark Marcelis

In 1988 Tracks’ Artistic Director, Tim Newth, toured with a small team of theatre performers to the remote community of Lajamanu, perched on the edge of the Tanami Desert, 940kms south-west of Darwin. It is hard to imagine a more remote community. While in Lajamanu, the Yawalyu Ceremonial Dancers offered to perform for the visiting artists in an exchange of culture. A relationship was formed, heralding the start of a long creative partnership between Tracks and the Yawalyu women.

Also in 1988, Maggi Phillips, Beth Shelton, Sarah Calver and Tim Newth created DANCE FEAST, a festival of dance performances in Darwin. With a strut, a wink and the odd gammy knee the Grey Panthers (older adults dance group) stepped onto the stage for the first time and made audiences take note that life wasn’t over yet, in fact, they were just getting started! David McMicken joined the Tracks team in 1992 for KURRA KARNA YANI with the Lajamanu community, and Old Spice Cabaret with the Grey Panthers. Many other artists have worked with the Grey Panthers over the years including Joanna Barrkman, Merrilee Mills, and Julia Quinn.

Both the Grey Panthers and Yawalyu Dancers have featured in many Tracks shows, including: BODIES OF LIGHT, Dear Auntie, HEALTHY WEALTHY AND WISE, A BOWLS CLUB WEDDING, NGAPA – TWO CULTURES ONE COUNTRY, Reluctant Retirees, MILPIRRI 05 ’, MILPIRRI 07, ANGELS OF GRAVITY, and FIERCE: THE STORY OF OLIVE PINK.

Who can ever forget the “grey-haired, tap-dancing, bum-flashing Shirley Temple” from last year’s hit show, YOU DANCE FUNNY ? And in Lajamanu the biannual performance of MILPIRRI has united young and old in a festival style event that has generated extraordinary pride in the community’s culture.

LIPSTICK & OCHRE features, amongst other moments, a grab from the Grey Panthers hit show A BOWLS CLUB WEDDING, a celebration of love sparked by rivalry in the twilight years between long standing members of feuding bowls clubs, the Top End Terrors (sexy bowls with bite) and the Mindil Monitors (romantics with a prickly tongue). In a world where team acrimony festers over generations of ardent supporters, tribal loyalties run deep.

The Top End Terrors
Oh we’re the Top End Terrors
We put up quite a fight
The other teams
Are old has beens
Coz we’re the team with bite. Bite!

The Mindil Monitors
We are the Mindil Monitors
We rule the bowling green
We’re hard and fast
We own the grass
We’re slick, we’re quick, we’re mean.

Tonight you will also glimpse FIERCE: THE STORY OF OLIVE PINK. Fierce comes from a distillation of hundreds of stories about Olive Muriel Pink. Now praised as a land rights pioneer and Aboriginal rights activist, in her day, Olive Pink was labelled as ‘mad’, and the ‘fiercest white woman in captivity’. Miss Pink rode life on the edge, her passion more than once bringing her to the brink of death. For Gladys Napangardi, one of the Lajamanu women who originally performed in FIERCE, Miss Pink was her first contact with a ‘white’ person. As one of the other women told us: “Miss Pink was a good woman, she didn’t shoot us.”

LIPSTICK & OCHRE celebrates a true love of dancing and the colourful history of the Grey Panthers and Lajamanu Yawalyu Dancers, tonight with their special guest artists.

For further information about our seniors performances CLICK HERE

"The patchwork of settings and themes is colourfully evocative: city and desert, lawnbowls and Breakdance, clapsticks and Frank Sinatra … A vivid statement that age is no barrier to public performance … leaves an aura of good feelings in its wake." Merridy Anne Pugh, Northern Territory Writers’ Centre Newsletter

"Women getting gussied up for a night out is a tradition that crosses boundaries of culture, age and time." ABC Darwin website

"There are not many occasions where it is appropriate to wolf-whistle at a senior — there are moments throughout this piece where it is not just acceptable, it is encouraged … Lipstick & Ochre is the Territory played out on stage, full of its contradictions, idiosyncrasies and unexpected and often rough edged Beauty." Daniel Bourchier, Northern Territory News

"The representation of Olive Pink was amazing — the meeting of her and the Aboriginal people was incredible. One of the nicest parts was when we left, the Aboriginal women shook the hands of everyone."

"Your bringing together of the desert and urban cultures was yet again a triumph of entertainment and audience engagement over form. More correctly I guess it one of your unique forms … Not one person in the audience was unmoved."

"Visually spectacular (although probably not the right word - more romantic), wacky, funny, exquisitely breathtaking and moving."

Concept and Direction

David McMicken and Tim Newth

Choreography

Julia Quinn, David McMicken, Trevor Patrick, Lajamanu Yawalyu Women

Additional Choreography

Sarah Calver, Nick Power, cast

Text

Gail Evans, David McMicken

Original Compositions

David McMicken

Sound Engineer

Matthew Cunliffe

Lighting Designer

Reuben Hopkins

Production Design / Art Direction

Tim Newth

Costumes / Props

Louise Rieck, Ann Gibb, Dixi Joy, Gaye Hawkes

Production and Promotions Personnel

Production Manager

Kelly Blumberg

Front of House Manager

Nicola Jackson

Stage Manager

Mary Fox

Lighting Operator

Reuben Hopkins

Stage Hands

Vera Tabuzo, Eugenio Hallen

Staging consultant / Prop builder

Chris Kluge

Stage

Don Whyte, Don Whyte Framing

Crew

Reuben De Waal, Sarah Davies, Correctional Services

Promotions / Publicity

Fiona Carter and Gail Evans

Graphic Design

Mark Marcelis and Narelle Sullivan

Photographic Documentation

Peter Eve

DVD Documentation

Todd Williams, Ian Redfearn and Katie Saunders

Lajamanu Yawalyu Dancers
Rosie Napurrula Tasman
Margaret Nungarrayi Martin
Lilly Nungarrayi Hargraves
Myra Nungarrayi Herbert
Biddy Nungarrayi Long
Biddy Napangardi Raymond

Guest Artists
Dr Irina Haas Bina / Lori:Gail Evans
Gil: David McMicken
Strong Man / Miss Pink: Trevor Patrick
Male Dancers: Gerard Japanangka Scobie, Caleb Japanangka Patrick

Paint Up (Lipstick & Ochre)

Introductions

Grey Panthers — It’s Not Unusual

Lajamanu Yawalyu — Desert People

Frank Sinatra Medley

You Make Me Feel So Young, That’s Why The Lady’s a Tramp, New York New York
Milpirri

Contemporary Male — Japanangka Japangardi skin group

Traditional Female — Napurrula Nakamarra skin group (Red), Napangardi Napanangka skin group (Green), and Napaljarri Nungarrayi skin group (Yellow)

Spice Girls

Strongman

- interval -

A Bowls Club Wedding

Fierce – The Meeting of Olive Pink

You’ve Got a Friend

History Repeating

Warlpiri Farewell Dance