Apologies for the lateness of a fresh news posting from us here at Ngapartji Ngapartji - this has certainly not been due to no news! Just after the last posting, folk from Ngapartji Ngapartji joined others from BighART, to attend the Sydney Myer Performing Arts Awards in Melbourne - where the organization was honoured with receiving the ‘Group award’.

Back in Alice, Batesy and Vanessa have been continuing their tireless work putting together the documentary, heartened by the project being short-listed as part of the JTV Doco initiative. 

Back from bush music recording workshops in Ernabella in April, Beth went straight on into an inspirational three day ‘Nyuntu Ngali’ creative development ‘happening’ in Adelaide in May with Scott Rankin, Elliat Rich, Trevor Jamieson, Derek Lynch and the team from Windmill.

Meanwhile, Alex has been finalizing the timeline for the ‘legacy pack’, recently renamed the 'memory basket' in consultation with the Ernabella ladies, which will go into production soon, but her main focus has been on intensifying the project’s efforts to lobby for a National Indigenous Language Policy. This has included locking in a long-hoped for meeting with Federal politicians in Canberra in June and this is where you can help!

More about all these items under subheadings below! 

First up - The Sydney Myer Performing Arts Awards - Group Award!

In late March, BighART, (producers not only of Ngapartji Ngapartji, but also Sticky Bricks, Radio Holiday, Junk Theory, Drive, Gold, Lucky and This is Living) was again recognised as a significant player in  the National performing arts forum by winning the Group Award category of the prestigious Sydney Myer Performing Arts Awards.

Big hART’s National Creative Director, Rankin said “It’s an honour that Big hART has been presented with this award and testament to the hard work the company has been doing for the last 17 years. However, it is the people in the communities that we work with that are the true heroes, as they share their stories with privileged Festival goers around the country.”

In a moving awards presenation held at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne Scott honoured this sentiment by using his award speech to pay tribute to long serving BighART volunteer Bob Taggert, for his incredible and invaluable contribution behind the scenes of the organsiation.

For more details on the amazing work at other BighART projects, check out the new website: http://www.bighart.org

Ernabella music recording workshops

Steve Fraser, Aimslem Morris and Travis Kulyuru mixing down at Ernabella

March and April was a busy time out bush for some from the project with Beth from Ngapartji Ngapartji and Steve Fraser from Melbourne running the Music Recording project in Ernabella for 22 consecutive days! Over fifty people were involved in the recording - old women, young women, kids, men, and old men, including musicians from Ernabella, Fregon, and Amata. It was Steve’s second visit to Ernabella and while there were some faces from last time, there were also some new young people joining in as musicians. A number of songs from the songwriting workshop in January with Rachel Hore were also recorded including ‘Wati Ngana’ by Beth and Jennifer Wells; ‘Kungka Kutju Anu’ by Karen Carroll, Jennifer Wells and others; and ‘Tjitji kulunynpa’ by Inawinytji Stanley, Renita Stanley and Linda Stanley. Beth recommends a special mention go to Phillip Marshall who patiently played drums on many tracks and who assisted younger musicians to have a go recording proper songs. In total about 40 songs were recorded including a mix of gospel, reggae, rock, and dub. There is now discussion about the possibility of producing a CD. 

Steve Langton from Hubbub Music Melaney also joined the workshops for last 10 days. He worked with the kids to create a range of innovative musical instruments to be used in upcoming production ‘Nyuntu Ngali’. These included a set of tuned alloy ‘mag’ wheels, pistons, a ‘Skeletone’, and a ‘thongaphone’ made of tail-shafts found in the Ernabella community car dump.

Shirley Dunn playing the new set of tuned pistons while recording her song 'Ngayuku walytja' 

National Indigenous Language policy - we need your help!

Another big part of the ongoing work done here at Ngapartji Ngapartji is lobbying for a National Indigenous Language policy, and the last few months have been a busy time in this area. As part of this, Jane and Alex attended a day session held by the Central Australian Linguists Circle (CALC) where Alex was invited to share the project’s experiences of taking language issues to the public. This day was an incredible way to gain insight into the extensive knowledge and passion of the many linguists who have worked so intensively with indigenous languages for so long, and it was also a way to offer up the public profile of Ngapartji Ngapartji to these professionals to use as leverage in the fight to preserve and maintain Indigenous languages.

Another part of this battle has been the putting together of an advertisement highlighting the need to halt the rapid loss of indigenous languages. The advert features three young girls from Abbott’s Camp and will be screened free as part of an SBS Foundation initiative. Watch out for it!

While raising awareness of Indigenous languages underpins all Ngapartji Ngapartji activity, the project ultimately seeks to turn that into tangible action by contributing to some real progress towards the development of a National Indigenous Languages Policy. After 5 years of building the language website, and touring the show, Ngapartji Ngapartji now has the opportunity to engage with the people who can help move the issue of Indigenous languages forward in leaps and bounds. Currently, without any supportive indigenous languages policy at a federal level we are left with a culture of fragmented and unspoken policy that prioritises English at the expense of indigenous languages.

There is a long history of campaigning and lobbying for indigenous languages in Australia, with some successes, and periods of regression. Hopefully Australia is emerging from a particularly unsupportive period in the last 15 - 20 years. On June 23rd we will make our contribution to that process by going to Canberra to meet personally with Jenny Macklin, and the advisors of Julia Gillard and Peter Garret, Ministers and advisors for Indigenous Affairs, Education and the Arts respectively, to talk about the need for a long term whole of Government strategy on indigenous languages and a National Indigenous Languages Policy.

We would love to be able to present each of the Ministers with a pile of letters from individuals and organizations about why it is so important the Australian government needs to provide national leadership on indigenous languages - NOW OR NEVER. 

Here’s where you can help!

Please take the time to write a letter - handwritten or typed, with or without letter-head - and send it to us by the 15th of June. You could include references to the importance of indigenous languages:

    - to a sense of identity, belonging and self
    - as a key to unlocking education participation
    - to improvements in mental health
    - to improvements in literacy and numeracy
    - being taught alongside English and not subordinate to
    - and being taken out of the 'too hard' basket before it is too late
    - or any other issue that you think is relevant

It's going to make a big difference to if we can demonstrate to them the reach and difference that this one area of policy could make. We look forward to being able to place your letter directly in the hand of the Minister who can make a difference. Letters can be emailed to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , or posted them to Ngapartji Ngapartji, Po Box 2765, Alice Springs NT 0871.

On a final note…

Congratulations to writer/director Warwick Thornton and the cast and crew of ‘Samson and Delilah’ on a truly amazing film. It is so heartening to see a film that reflects the experiences and issues of people living in remote Central Australia in such a powerful, sensitive and creative way. If you haven’t yet seen it, we thoroughly recommend that you do. And on a final note we would like to acknowledge the sad passing of a true Ngapartji Ngapartji friend, Alex’s trusty canine companion ‘Roxy’, who many know and love from The Ernabella tour.

 Roxy with Alex at Ernabella. 2008

More news soon.
Jane,

on behalf of the Ngapartji Ngapartji team,