Performance is pivotal to Indigenous culture. Participation in the rituals of ceremonial life allows the regenerative power of the ancestral world to be invoked and brings the community together at particular moments of time: for initiation, fertility and mortuary ceremonies at the death of a community member or to reinstate friendly relations with other social groups. Performances are essentially collaborative ventures which may involve the entire community in song, dance, ground sculptures, body painting, body ornaments and fibre objects in the form of string and baskets.

The power of art

Every society has its ritual performances. In Aboriginal society ritual or ceremonial performances may occur infrequently but they are nonetheless very significant. Every aspect of ritual life is believed to have originated in the distant past and the ancestral heroes associated with the past are felt to be present during performances. Since the 1970s, Aborigines have also used performances in their claims for land rights.

How do rituals evolve?

Christensen: The Gurirr Gurirr

In the Gurirr-Gurirr (Kurrir-Kurrir, Krill Krill) ceremony we see how contemporary ceremonies can emerge from a combination of circumstances.

The Gurirr-Gurirr ceremony first appeared to Rover Thomas in a dream following the death of a close female relative a long way from home.

The dream coincided with Cyclone Tracy in 1974 which almost complete devastated the capital city of Darwin.

The Gurirr-Gurirr ceremony, together with other balga ceremonies held in Warmun, Mowanjum and Kalumburu, signalled a cultural resurgence in the Kimberley region. A new contemporary Kimberley art style emerged led by Paddy Jaminji, Rover Thomas, Queenie McKenzie, Jimmy Pike and Jarinyanu David Downs.

Negotiated culture-making

Bennett: A Warlpiri Ground Painting in Paris...

In this article Lance Bennett discusses the production of a sand painting or ground painting by 12 Warlpiri artists from Lajamanu for an exhibition in Paris in 1983. Such public performances inevitably involve Aboriginal artists in a process of negotiation.

While many commentators tend to view critically these public performances raising questions about their authenticity, anthropologist Fred Myers argues that increasingly, Indigenous performances take place in a wider context such as an art exhibition or the Olympic Games in Sydney 2000. In these public displays both Aboriginal performers and the audience participants are involved in a form of a 'culture-making'.

Aboriginal artists have always been involved in public performances, aimed at engaging in dialogue with a settler colonial society. Corroborees, an adaptation of a traditional public entertainment, have long been performed in south eastern Australia.

Dancer Russell Page in the film Urban Clan (1997) says that Bangarra Dance Theatre:

is a modern-day corroboree... building the bridges between traditional Aboriginality and urban Aboriginality because it has song, dance and storytelling in a more contemporary form.

An Indigenous performance

Describe any Indigenous performance you have seen. For example, the performance may be associated with an exhibition opening at a museum or gallery, an Indigenous festival, or a major event like the Olympic Games in Sydney 2000. Perhaps you have seen a performance of Bangarra Dance Theatre; an Aboriginal play; the musical, Bran Nue Dae ; a performance by Yothu Yindi or by Archie Roach singing Took the Children Away.

Fred Myers says that this form of cultural exchange involves Aboriginal performers and audience participants alike in a process of 'culture-making'? Do your agree?

Use the Discussion Board to share your experiences.