Greetings from Pukatja in South Australia, home to many of the minyma (women) who have graced the stage for the Ngapartji Ngapartji show over the past year with their soulful harmonies as well as a number of young people who have taken part in video making for many of the movies you see on the website. For the past two weeks Ngapartji Ngapartji have set up camp here with a mobile recording studio running from the school hall, facilitated by audio engineer Steve Fraser from Melbourne and artsworker/Ngapartji Ngapartji Choir Coordinator Beth Sometimes who’ve been working long hours to cater to the enthusiasm of a community with a rich tradition of inma (song) and music that both young people and old are keen to record.

We are very grateful to Ernabella School for hosting the project, putting us up at the school and enabling us to use the school hall. So far we’ve had the ladies recording gospel songs as well as Christmas hymns and in the next few days they’ll be rehearsing and recording the songs from the Ngapartji Ngapartji show. We’ve also had the young fellas recording desert reggae and acting as mentors to a younger generation of desert musicians. On Saturday there’s going to be gathering of minyma pampa tjuta (senior women) who want to record some of the stories and songs they remember from childhood and next week the Ernabella Children’s Choir, who have recently performed in Adelaide, will record their repertoire.
   

Steve recording with the young fellas                            Ladies recording gospel songs

At the same time the music recordings have inspired some musicians to make video clips. Rhoda, Batesy and myself have been braving the walpa pulka (big wind) this afternoon to make a clip for one of Rhoda’s original songs and Batesy and Rhoda are sitting now with Rhoda’s sister, Lisa, editing the footage shot in the rocky hills around the community. Steve reckons it’s ‘Rage’ material so watch out for ‘Ngura Wiru Ilkaringka’.

Our days here has been made rich spending time with nganampa malpa tjuta (our friends) sharing their ngura with us. Yesterday we visited Melissa Thompson, who came on tour to Sydney last year, at her homeland Black Hill. She invited us out to meet the two baby camels that recently came to live at her place. All the way in the car we sang songs together and Melissa and her boys taught us the camel song they made up which they are going to record with some other home-grown songs for tjiti tjuta (the kids). Melissa’s idea was to make a video to go with the song so Collette and the other young people got some great footage chasing the camels round the house with the camera. Later all the kids sat on the verandah and watched Ngapartji Ngapartji videos from the laptop.

Steve and Mervin listening to Mervin's recording         Rhoda,Batesy, Nami and Dani in our new T shirts BIG THANKS TO THE TRADES HALL LEARNING GROUP FOR FUNDRAISING FOR US TO MAKE THESE!!

Before I sign off from Pukatja I want to mention that Pantjiti and Simon McKenzie were recently awarded the Preston Lifetime Achievement Award for their work in media at the 9th National Remote Media Festival which was held in Warakurna, WA, in September.
Also Lorna and Ally gave a very successful presentation at the National Indigenous Languages Conference in Adelaide the other week inciting great interest in the project from participants across the country who are seeking ways to keep languages strong and especially in engaging young people in the process. As a result Ngapartji Ngapartji have been asked to present at the AIATSIS policy day at their conference in Canberra in November.

Ally went on to meet Trevor at the This Is Not Art Festival in Newcastle where the pair received some great feedback from their presentation at Electrofringe about the ngapartji ngapartji project and  website. Alex also joined fellow big hARTers on another panel which sought to unpack the big hART model and processes. And finally Ally attended the launch of Belvoir St’s season in Sydney this week which opened with the Ngapartji Ngapartji project video in which a lot of the community have been involved in making. Be it only October our thoughts are now starting to turn towards the Sydney tour… Which ladies can come and for how long (this will be our longest tour)? Who needs a costume? How will the Pukatja crew get to Alice to catch the plane on the 6th January?

Lucky we have a new company manager on board. Mariaa Randall has joined the team in Alice and has been busy these past few weeks booking flights and accommodation and doing an awesome job nutting out the logistics of touring a show with a cast who are dotted all over the country. Great to have you on board Mariaa.

So its' official: We are excited to announce that the full production of Ngapartji Ngapartji will be at Belvoir St Theatre from January 9 to Febrary 10 as part of the Sydney Festival! Spread the word!

Dani