By Larry Schwartz
April 20, 2006

OTHERS may say, "g'day". But where Trevor Jamieson comes from, you greet with "wai palya?" and respond "uwa palya" — "Are you all right?" "Yes I am".

Jamieson has ventured in recent years from home among the spinifex grasses of Australia to play didgeridoo and dance at wedding celebrations in Denmark and has toured Ireland, Holland, Belgium.

He was in Melbourne yesterday teaching a version, in his Pitjantjatjara language, of a children's song, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

"Kata, ulpiri, muti, tjina," the 31-year-old performer sang, gesturing with the crowd at respective parts of the body during the launch at Federation Square of an online language course to improve the appreciation of Ngapartji, Ngapartji, a show based on his family's story, at this year's Melbourne International Arts Festival.

"My mob is called the spinifex mob," said Jamieson, who was born in Subiaco in WA but spent most of his life in Esperance.

He led a performance of a shorter Ngapartji Ngapartji at last year's festival.

"What it means is that you are given certain information and then you have to give back certain information. Ngapartji Ngapartji is, 'I give you something and you give me something'."

Pitjantjatjara is spoken by about 2500 people across the north-western parts of South Australia and areas of Western Australian and the Northern Territory. Community members and others will teach the language through online stories, songs, animations and short films to deepen appreciation of the festival production in October.

The organisers showed a short film in which children explained the meanings of words including, "ngura" (country), "manta" (land or earth), "tjawani" (dig), "punu" (tree, wood), "maku" (witchetty grub) and "waru" (fire).

Jamieson has developed the project over six years with writer and director Scott Rankin and producer Alex Kelly, who said that technology made it possible to "enter into a relationship with the Pitjantjatjara community".

Rankin and Kelly praised the resilience of the community despite its poverty and marginalisation and the devastating effects on the community of British nuclear testing at Maralinga.

Melbourne festival artistic director Kristy Edmunds said it was a unique opportunity to join the people who "speak this beautiful, extraordinary language".

In a traditional welcome, Wurundjeri elder Joy Murphy offered gum leaves from her home in Healesville and shared some of her traditional words — "Narrm" (Melbourne), "omenda" (love), "maloong boops" (grandchildren), "yeamennbik" (land) and "mooroop" (spirit).