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Ngapartji Ngapartji - Preview |
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Monday, 14 January 2008 |
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Clara Iaccarino
December 20, 2007
In a faded blue T-shirt and jeans, Trevor Jamieson flashes on to the
computer screen, swatting flies from his face as he welcomes
participants to Ngapartji Ngapartji's online community.
He is framed in a desert scene, the sun beating on his back as he
acknowledges the native landowners upon whose land he stands, flitting
between his indigenous tongue, Pitjantjatjara, and English.
Preview
"This is quite special to me," he says. "It's about language learning and keeping the culture alive by using old methods. It's to help everybody learn about their own Australia."
Jamieson's introductory address is for those who have taken the Ngapartji challenge. Before attending the stage production Ngapartji Ngapartji, in which Jamieson is the central storyteller, these online visitors have signed up to learn Pitjantjatjara via an online course (www.ngapartji.org) co-ordinated by young indigenous people. The course is the first of its kind in the world.
Eight years ago, Jamieson and writer-director Scott Rankin of Big hART devised this project. In its first incarnation, Rankin says, the language course was virtually compulsory and the duo's approach was very political.
"When you came to see the show you were met at the door by an indigenous young person who asked you a question," Rankin recalls.
"If you couldn't answer it you wouldn't be allowed in. We quickly realised this adversarial approach wasn't very useful. [The web-based language course] became a space online where you could go and absorb as much as you want to add to your experience of the piece."
The production furthers the notion of cross-cultural exchange. Jamieson propels the narrative, relaying the story of how his people, the Spinifex people of the Western Desert, were driven from their land to make way for a British atomic weapon test site at Maralinga.
It is his personal family story but it is also a historical record of how the Spinifex nation became embroiled in the Cold War.
"We think there were just a few tests out there and nothing much happened," Rankin says. "But there were 600 tests, of which a small number were big bombs, 1000 times bigger than Hiroshima. When they knew there were Aboriginal people in the area there was one patrolman, patrolling an area the size of Great Britain, trying to get people out. They put up signs and dropped leaflets but they were all in English.
"This is really a story of the Spinifex nation standing alongside Japan and Great Britain and the USSR and America in the Cold War. But Spinifex people had never heard of war."
As the show has a four-week season, Rankin has had to rehearse two choirs to rest the senior members and allow others to attend to sick partners back in Alice Springs.
"They enjoy the trip and the shopping and the casino as much as anyone, but being in the city and living in an apartment is a stressful thing," Rankin says.
"They get a lot from it but they can be quite beautifully indifferent to the whole thing - it's the sort of thing that an egotistical wanker like myself might enjoy but they prefer a cup of tea to the applause."
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2010 Ngapartji Ngapartji