Courier Mail article - art and dance
The following was published in the Courier Mail ( Queensland's major Newspaper) on 7/1/06
*Anna Bligh was not the arts minister at the time of writing, I knew that and did not say she was. The innacurate reference was inserted by the C.M. editor. - J.T.
Courier Mail, Edition 1 - First with the news
SAT 07 JAN 2006, Page M07
Dull state for bright sparks
By: John Tracey
To shine on stage talented Queensland Aborigines must travel elsewhere, writes John Tracey
WHY hasn't Queensland produced an international dance company like Sydney's Bangarra? Why are there no famous Queensland Aboriginal art movements such as in the Northern Territory and Western Australia? Why does Queensland, the state with the largest Aboriginal population, lag behind in Aboriginal art and culture?
The answer is simple: Queensland's Aboriginal performance and art industry is dominated by non-Aboriginal people and their agendas.
Queensland does have the world's best Aboriginal artists and performers. Mornington Island dancers, Nunukul dancers and art movements such as Lockhart River. These places, where Aboriginal culture is the driving force of art and performance, are the under-developed powerhouses of the Aboriginal art movements of the 21st century.
There are no Aboriginal-controlled performing arts training institutions in Queensland. The Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts is owned by the State Government and managed by a board of directors handpicked by Arts Minister Anna Bligh. TAFE and university programs are controlled by and designed for government education frameworks.
It is Aboriginal culture that delights and fascinates international audiences (though it doesn't raise much interest in Australia which is the crux of the problem). Aboriginal culture is not a textbook technique. It is alive, it is spiritual, it taps into the essence of human creativity. This is its strength.
Aboriginal culture and spirit cannot be taught in white institutions administered by people who don't even know what it is. Though many Aborigines are employed in these white institutions, their job is to execute the vision of white funding authorities. Their own Aboriginal visions atrophy through neglect until they become simply administrators themselves. The arts bureaucracy is littered with talented artists with few skills of structural and political leadership. These people should be creating works of excellence within their own art forms.
Aborigines who do have the vision, skills, networks and experience to lead a dynamic Aboriginal arts movement are systematically disempowered. Their visions are dismissed in favour of white-trained Aboriginal bureaucrats and their funding authorities.
The 1970s and 80s saw the rise of the concept of Aboriginal self-determination as the primary policy of indigenous affairs at state and federal levels. This notion, like the explosion of Aboriginal art and music movements of the time, slowly dissipated into the present state of old-fashioned colonial administration of native affairs in the arts industry.
All is not lost, but it nearly is.
Kooemba Jdarra, Australia's only Aboriginal theatre production company, based in Brisbane, has a board democratically elected with membership open to any Aboriginal arts worker. It has the capacity to represent Aboriginal vision.
However, in recent years many of Kooemba Jdarra's productions have been written or co-written by white people. Its stable of performers has been small with the same faces appearing over and over again. It has not lived up to its grand proclamation of ``Australia's premier indigenous theatre company''.
Interestingly though, there has been a recent changing of the guard at Kooemba Jdarra. The new administrators are trained at the NAISDA Dance College in Sydney, which is part of the same creative movement as Bangarra and trains most of its dancers.
Since NAISDA's inception in the 1970s, a disproportionate number of its students have been Queenslanders. The same with the list of Bangarra's stars. Queensland has been providing the raw talent for the Sydney dance movement for more than 20 years.
Our brightest sparks have had to leave Queensland to pursue their career.
Some of those sparks, such as Bangarra's artistic director, Stephen Page, and his brothers David and the late Russell, have started international bushfires with their art. These men carved a path from the streets of Brisbane to the international stage, but they had to go to Sydney to do it.
The ``Smart State'' has invested a lot of money in arts infrastructure recently. The Millennium Arts centre is quickly taking form and Arts Queensland has been through a structural spring clean and now Queensland needs something with which to fill its infrastructure.
Without a truly Aboriginal arts industry, however, Queensland's auditoriums will have only token, mediocre presentations of local Aboriginal performance. The crowds will have to be delighted by world-class Aboriginal performances from other states.
It's time to go back to the drawing board regarding Aboriginal arts training and adopt principles of Aboriginal self-determination. There is no shortage of Aboriginal diamonds here. Take them out of the closed Aboriginal box, polish them up and watch them shine.
That's what a ``Smart State'' would do.
John Tracey is an artist, writer and music manager, and executive officer for Aboriginal Women Reclaiming Culture And Land (AWRCAL)
*Anna Bligh was not the arts minister at the time of writing, I knew that and did not say she was. The innacurate reference was inserted by the C.M. editor. - J.T.
Courier Mail, Edition 1 - First with the news
SAT 07 JAN 2006, Page M07
Dull state for bright sparks
By: John Tracey
To shine on stage talented Queensland Aborigines must travel elsewhere, writes John Tracey
WHY hasn't Queensland produced an international dance company like Sydney's Bangarra? Why are there no famous Queensland Aboriginal art movements such as in the Northern Territory and Western Australia? Why does Queensland, the state with the largest Aboriginal population, lag behind in Aboriginal art and culture?
The answer is simple: Queensland's Aboriginal performance and art industry is dominated by non-Aboriginal people and their agendas.
Queensland does have the world's best Aboriginal artists and performers. Mornington Island dancers, Nunukul dancers and art movements such as Lockhart River. These places, where Aboriginal culture is the driving force of art and performance, are the under-developed powerhouses of the Aboriginal art movements of the 21st century.
There are no Aboriginal-controlled performing arts training institutions in Queensland. The Aboriginal Centre for Performing Arts is owned by the State Government and managed by a board of directors handpicked by Arts Minister Anna Bligh. TAFE and university programs are controlled by and designed for government education frameworks.
It is Aboriginal culture that delights and fascinates international audiences (though it doesn't raise much interest in Australia which is the crux of the problem). Aboriginal culture is not a textbook technique. It is alive, it is spiritual, it taps into the essence of human creativity. This is its strength.
Aboriginal culture and spirit cannot be taught in white institutions administered by people who don't even know what it is. Though many Aborigines are employed in these white institutions, their job is to execute the vision of white funding authorities. Their own Aboriginal visions atrophy through neglect until they become simply administrators themselves. The arts bureaucracy is littered with talented artists with few skills of structural and political leadership. These people should be creating works of excellence within their own art forms.
Aborigines who do have the vision, skills, networks and experience to lead a dynamic Aboriginal arts movement are systematically disempowered. Their visions are dismissed in favour of white-trained Aboriginal bureaucrats and their funding authorities.
The 1970s and 80s saw the rise of the concept of Aboriginal self-determination as the primary policy of indigenous affairs at state and federal levels. This notion, like the explosion of Aboriginal art and music movements of the time, slowly dissipated into the present state of old-fashioned colonial administration of native affairs in the arts industry.
All is not lost, but it nearly is.
Kooemba Jdarra, Australia's only Aboriginal theatre production company, based in Brisbane, has a board democratically elected with membership open to any Aboriginal arts worker. It has the capacity to represent Aboriginal vision.
However, in recent years many of Kooemba Jdarra's productions have been written or co-written by white people. Its stable of performers has been small with the same faces appearing over and over again. It has not lived up to its grand proclamation of ``Australia's premier indigenous theatre company''.
Interestingly though, there has been a recent changing of the guard at Kooemba Jdarra. The new administrators are trained at the NAISDA Dance College in Sydney, which is part of the same creative movement as Bangarra and trains most of its dancers.
Since NAISDA's inception in the 1970s, a disproportionate number of its students have been Queenslanders. The same with the list of Bangarra's stars. Queensland has been providing the raw talent for the Sydney dance movement for more than 20 years.
Our brightest sparks have had to leave Queensland to pursue their career.
Some of those sparks, such as Bangarra's artistic director, Stephen Page, and his brothers David and the late Russell, have started international bushfires with their art. These men carved a path from the streets of Brisbane to the international stage, but they had to go to Sydney to do it.
The ``Smart State'' has invested a lot of money in arts infrastructure recently. The Millennium Arts centre is quickly taking form and Arts Queensland has been through a structural spring clean and now Queensland needs something with which to fill its infrastructure.
Without a truly Aboriginal arts industry, however, Queensland's auditoriums will have only token, mediocre presentations of local Aboriginal performance. The crowds will have to be delighted by world-class Aboriginal performances from other states.
It's time to go back to the drawing board regarding Aboriginal arts training and adopt principles of Aboriginal self-determination. There is no shortage of Aboriginal diamonds here. Take them out of the closed Aboriginal box, polish them up and watch them shine.
That's what a ``Smart State'' would do.
John Tracey is an artist, writer and music manager, and executive officer for Aboriginal Women Reclaiming Culture And Land (AWRCAL)
posted by John Tracey | 6:16 AM
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