iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

[ididjaustralia]

There's no keeping Djakapurra still! For those in the Sydney area, make sure to keep October 5-7 free for this performance.



The following comes from the Sydney Morning Herald website:

Quote:

A new play tells the story of an ancient cultural exchange, writes Joyce Morgan. THEY came for edible sea slugs. They left behind fabric, flags and tales of a vigorous trade under way long before Captain Cook set foot on our shores. The little-known tales of how Makassans from Sulawesi arrived on Australia's northern coast in search of the much-prized delicacy were among those playwright Julie Janson heard as a young teacher in Arnhem Land more than 30 years ago. "The Makassans traded the slug to the Chinese. To get it they set up this long-term trading relationship with Aboriginal people, especially with Yolngu," she says. "The Yolngu would do the diving, boil it, smoke it and in return the Yolngu got cloth, fabric, rice, knives." The trade, which began more than 300 years ago, is believed to be the first Muslim contact with Australia. Janson has drawn on some of the stories she heard to create The Eyes of Marege, an ambitious text, music and dance piece that brings together indigenous performers with artists from Sulawesi's contemporary theatre company, Teater Kita Makassar. Janson's starting point is a fight between a Makassan trader and an indigenous man, Birramen, over a sacred object. The trader is killed and Birramen must travel to Makassar to face justice. After five years in prison and later marrying a local woman, he returns home. Much of the piece is set on a bamboo boat as Birramen travels between the two lands. The story interweaves elements of a number of tales of a trade that extended through the Kimberleys, Groote Eylandt and Cape York. "It was a reasonably harmonious relationship, from what I can gather, for many hundreds of years," Janson says. "The Aboriginal people appreciated the fact that the Indonesians did the call to prayer … There was a lot of intermarriage. Some Makassans had wives in [Arnhem Land]. A lot of Aboriginal people went back to Makassar. " Like much of Janson's work, The Eyes of Marege - which was shortlisted for the Patrick White Award and will premiere in Adelaide before transferring to Sydney - ventures across cultures. Her previous works have included Lotus War and Tears of the Poppy, about Asian politics, while Gunjies and her best-known play Black Mary have dealt with indigenous issues. Janson has been a regular visitor to Indonesia over many years, including in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami when she set up a number of tent schools. She is developing a play about the tsunami and will work with a female theatre company in Padang, Sumatra, later this year when she takes up a residency at Bunghatta University. Tales of contact between northern Australia and Sulawesi are part of the shared history between the Indonesian island and northern indigenous communities. The ancient trade is remembered in the songs and dances of north -eastern Arnhem Land that songman Djakapurra Munyarryun grew up with. "I learned the stories from the elders," says Munyarryun. "All the trade, people made a song about that. Flag song, dance, tobacco dance, knife dance, the Yolngu made a song about that. When I was growing I was listening." Munyarryun will perform in the work and is co-choreographer, with Bernadette Walong. Both have worked together at the leading indigenous dance company Bangarra. For Munyarryun, the trade is more than tales of long ago. His grandfather, who traded turtle shells, is buried in Makassar and had a family there. Munyarryun hopes to eventually meet that extended family. "I want to document my family. My grandfather, I want to see where he's buried, see all his kids," he says. The Eyes of Marege is at the Sydney Opera House studio from October 5-7.

Source document is here.

Guan

_________________
iDIDJ Australia - Didgeridoo Cultural Hub
E-mail: info@ididj.com.au
Web: www.ididj.com.au
YouTube: www.youtube.com/ididjaustralia

[Peter Lister]

I've got tickets !

PL.

[ididjaustralia]

I'm jealous

Guan

[flyangler18]

Quote:

I've got tickets !

I'm looking forward to your review, Peter! It's a shame that there hasn't been a larger interest in traditional Aboriginal cultural performance here in the States. I was particularly lucky to meet Bobby Bununggurr, Jimmy Djamanba and Michael Dawu when they performed in Baltimore in February of this year.

_________________
www.jdidj.com

[ididjaustralia]

flyangler18 wrote:

I was particularly lucky to meet Bobby Bununggurr at the beginning of this year.

Hey Jason,

How was Bobby? He was there with Jimmy Djamanba and Michael Dawu right? Dawu is a comedian... last time I saw him he couldn't stop laughing about something... the joke was beyond me. And I'm supposed to buy him a 4WD vehicle here and drive it up to Arnhem Land for him. Hmmm.... maybe that's the joke!

Guan

_________________
iDIDJ Australia - Didgeridoo Cultural Hub
E-mail: info@ididj.com.au
Web: www.ididj.com.au
YouTube: www.youtube.com/ididjaustralia

[flyangler18]

Quote:

How was Bobby? He was there with Jimmy Djamanba and Michael Dawu right?

All quite entertaining! It's a funny story how I got the chance to meet them actually. Ash Dargan was in town for a gathering and happened to bump into them in the airport in Baltimore and mentioned it to me when I saw him the next day. They were in Baltimore performing at the National Aquarium there on the Inner Harbor. I actually wound up hanging out with them for a while after there performance, and drove them around Baltimore for a while showing them the sights!

_________________
www.jdidj.com

[Peter Lister]

I'll be sure to provide a review but because I'm not online at home you'll have to wait until the 8th...

Djakapurra is great on stage so I'm looking forward to seeing him perform again and The Studio (at the Sydney Opera House) where this is to be staged is an intimate affair so one can't but help being drawn into the performance.

Bita.

[SeriousChris]

Peter Lister wrote:

Djakapurra is great on stage so I'm looking forward to seeing him perform again and The Studio (at the Sydney Opera House) where this is to be staged is an intimate affair so one can't but help being drawn into the performance.

And Djakapurra certainly has all the physical attributes for a great stage presence. I briefly met him in Yirrkala. A towering, big guy with a lot of charisma!

_________________
Serious Sticks

[flyangler18]

Quote:

I'll be sure to provide a review but because I'm not online at home you'll have to wait until the 8th...

I imagine it will be worth waiting for.....

_________________
www.jdidj.com

[Peter Lister]

Well, in the meantime you can checkout this old page of mine, you old flatterer you...);

http://www.manikay.com/didjeridu/macass.shtml

If only I have your knack with words Jason, then it'll be enjoyable reading,

_________________
Bita

[flyangler18]

Quote:

If only I have your knack with words Jason, then it'll be enjoyable reading,

You're too kind, Bita!

_________________
www.jdidj.com

[Peter Lister]

So, here it is;

The Eyes of Marege – a review

We left home on Saturday afternoon and drove down to Sydney, arriving about an hour later and parking on the northern side of the harbour from where we caught a ferry and travelled southeast to the Sydney Opera House – just like makassans travelling southeast to northern Australia centuries ago !!

‘The Studio’ is on the western (Harbour Bridge) side of the Opera House and it was a beautiful evening. The performance started a little late and ran for an hour. I must apologize firstly for not knowing who all the performers were as there was no such announcements – no intros and no final credits/bows. I can only go by what was on the flyer. There were 12 performers. Of course I recognized Djakapurra but don’t know who the other two Yolngu were, sorry (one a dancer, the other a yidaki player) – maybe Randin would know as they’re probably from around Yirrkala ???. Naturally Djakapurra sang and danced – he opened the show with some powerful solo singing. There were another two Aboriginal performers; Rod Smith and Lisa Flanagan– both of whom played the key roles of a Yolngu brother (Birramen) and sister (Dhalawal) during that period when Makassans visited Arnhem Land regularly. Lisa Flanagan also portrayed a Dutch woman and a makassan woman (Fatima) during the performance. There were also seven men from the ‘Teater Kita Makassar’ in Sulawesi, three of whom played various Makassan characters, the others played a variety of instruments and danced. One, Muhamad Isak, played Ahmad, Dhalawal’s husband.

From the OzAsia Festival website;

“In the 1900s, on an island off Northeast Arnhem Land, an Indigenous man, Birramen, and a Makassan fisherman fight over the theft of a sacred indigenous object. The fisherman is killed in the fight and Birramen’s friend Ahmad saves him from the revenge of the other fisherman. But Birramen must sail to Makassar to be tried in court for the murder. He finds himself mesmerised by the sights, sounds and culture of this southern Sulawesi city. After five years’ imprisonment and marriage to a Makassan woman, Birramen voyages home, dressed ‘like a sultan in woven sarong and silver bangle’ and profoundly enriched by his experience of the culture and peoples of this vibrant sea-faring city.”

I won’t elaborate any more upon the content in case there is someone on the forum that may yet see it. All I’ll say is that it was a good storyline examining many different aspects of this particular contact and raising plenty of topics of interest to the audience. Overall, it was well performed and an hour was about the limit without any intermission. The show was performed in English, Yolngu matha, Bahasa and Arabic.

This was an interesting performance from several perspectives as it was a mixture of music, dance and drama from both cultures plus a little contemporary ‘western’ performance. The set props were brilliant – a large bamboo structure doubled as a Makassan prahu and also a Makassan prison, and was also the “musicians pit” where three makassan musicians and the yidaki player sat. The costume changes for Lisa Flanagan and some of the makassan roles were done just slightly off-stage and were smooth and effective. The lighting was excellent and a brief bit of multimedia was used particularly effectively to compress time. The makassan instruments (again please excuse my ignorance) included at least three types of drum and two stringed instruments and two wind instruments plus some other percussion (such as small cymbals). Some of the makassan music was what I would imagine is typically “Indonesian” to me, but mostly it was Islamic and much of the lyric was in Arabic and Bahasa. The musicianship was terrific, the acting, very professional.

I recognised some of the Yolngu music – mostly Yirritja pieces as expected, some of it a little too brief for my liking. A very brief crocodile dance left me wanting more – the yidaki playing was terrific throughout – an instrument partly painted and partly bound with black electrical tape of course. Djakapurra had a great pair of bilma (would love them). The closing dance was a flag dance – most appropriate as is danced (often at a funeral) as a metaphor for the makassans heading home – really bought some finality to the show and the flags were something that makassans originally bought to the Top End. Without giving anything away, a touching example of contemporary dance by Lisa Flanagan was not out of place – it added something to the broader metaphor of cultural change and depicted a sensitive moment that touched upon personal connections developed between makassans and yolngu.

The different styles of music worked well together and helped to set the scenes and locale. I really enjoyed the makassan pieces, especially the stringed instruments – just beautiful. It seemed there was more time given to makassan performance than yolngu. My partner remarked that there was more colour, more theatre, more song and humour from the makassan performers and that they played to and acknowledged the audience unlike the yolngu performers. Maybe this bias exists because one of the two Directors (Ram Prapanca) is from the makassan theatre ?

As a critic I’m pretty pedantic, sorry. One part that sticks in my mind is not the kind of thing one should remember. When Birramen kills the fishermen he tries to explain to the makassans what happened and blurts out the lame remark “I didn’t mean to hurt him”…..I also think that if you are going to use specific indigenous words then an effort should be made to pronounce them correctly. There were quite a few Yolngu words introduced to the audience, one of them used more frequently than any other word during the show (and probably because it was THE main reason makassans were coming here). This is one of the Yolngu words for sea slug, dharripa. It was never pronounced correctly by the non-Yolngu Aboriginal leads – they kept saying dirapa. Other mispronunciations were minor as they were words used just once. These are my only negative comments.

Of particular interest to me was the suggestion via the role being played, that some Yolngu may have converted to Islam during their stay in Makassar. I don’t know if this may have ever happened but it certainly set me to thinking about the possibility. Certainly Yolngu have adopted Christianity pretty readily after a relatively short encounter with Methodist Missions compared with a long exposure to makassans – but then I’m also unsure of how long makassans have been muslims….

When it was over, we, like the makassans, sailed back across the harbour to the northwest and headed for home feeling the trip was well worth it. So if any of you here have the chance to see this show, I’d highly recommend it.

_________________
Bita

[martin]

Thanks for the review Peter, it was well worth the read.
I would love to see the play but believe that your review is the closest I will get.
I am sure that a large proportion of Australians know little or nothing
of the contact between Yolngu and Makassans and it is great to see that such
works are getting into public attention.
Cheers, Martin

_________________
http://www.fluiditj.com

[flyangler18]

Many thanks indeed for the review, Peter. Sounds like it was quite a show! Alas your review will likewise be the closest I'll get to seeing it- unless it comes to the US at some stage.

Jason

_________________
www.jdidj.com

[ididjaustralia]

Peter Lister wrote:

I recognized Djakapurra but don’t know who the other two Yolngu were, sorry

Good review mate, yeah, I'm a stickler for mispronunciations too when Yolngu words are used in artistic public discourse.

One of the other blokes was Aaron Nalkuma who also did the Korea tour last year. I don't know who the 3rd person was.

Guan