Karnka (The Crow) - 2021
2021 Milpirri - Yinapaka
Karnka (The Crow)
Description of Dance
This dance tells the story of the clever, smart, cunning, and strong Crow convincing the little birds that he’s their right teacher. The Crow is untrustworthy, he tricks and manipulates. This is related to a Crow story of stealing a dog and its owner, a girl/woman of wrong skin. The movements are full of swagger (small pop and locks), symbolise warming up the wings and that Crow can bend its wings to be a better flier. Two lines are formed with the front line kneeling down the reveal a very confident backline of Crows. Gestural movements declare that the Crow is the best and the front line representing the little birds then copy this movement. The movements have repetition enforce the broken record that is the Crow. The little birds aren’t convinced. The fast rolling hand movements is the little birds saying “Crow doesn’t have our trust.”
*Milpirri 2021 was reimagined to suit the current COVID circumstances. The dance in this video is from a showing at Lajamanu school. They are not complete dances.
Choreography
Stephanie Spillett, Bec Reid and David McMicken
Karnka (The Crow) story as told by Steve Jampijinpa Patrick
Karnka (The Crow) (Japanangka) says – “I can teach you to fly high. I am the smartest. I can work out strategies, teach you how to move your wings to lift you higher.” But the others say – “you are smart but you have broken the law. You stole a little girl's puppy dog, you deceived that girl. She is the wrong skin, mother in law skin”. Karnka stole the dog and then said he just found the dog wandering around, he is in my camp and you can come around later and pick it up, pick it up when the sun is going down, when I get back from hunting. The little girl went over to the crows place at sunset. When she saw the dog the crow trapped her and kept her there. (This is all in the Kurdiji Ceremony) “You might be smart, but we don’t want you,” they said.
Story from Yarrunkanyi (Mt Hardy)