| News 5th June 2007 |
| Tuesday, 05 June 2007 | |
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Wai! Palya? Rehearsals for the Dreaming Festival and the Adelaide Cabaret Festival are in full swing in Alice Springs this week with the arrival of choir leader Beth and Stage Manager Jess last Friday and Trevor and Scott on the weekend. We started Sunday in Batesy’s newly clearly out shed, taking our minds back to the Language show we performed in Sydney last year, where different excerpts from the large-scale production (as seen in Melbourne and Perth Festivals) are performed each night alongside language teaching around the particular themes of anangu (body), walytja (family) and tjukurpa (law). We are excited to welcome 17-year-old Maureen Watson to the show, who’s been actively involved in the Ngapartji Ngapartji project since we met her in Docker River in February. Maureen will travel with us to the Dreaming Festival then return to Alice to help out with her new nephew, born last week. In her place Sadie Richards (who performed in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth) and first time in performance (though very involved on the ground) Belinda Abbott will both be joining us in Adelaide. These two will be catching the bush bus from Docker River to Alice this week (an 8-hr trip!) and waiting 4 days to catch the plane to Adelaide Monday (what an effort!)We also welcome Janet Inyika to the show who hails from Amata (south of Ernabella) and have been enjoying the strength and stage presence of this particular trio of minyma – Janet, Jennifer (Mitchell) and Pantjiti (McKenzie) (even if they missed the first rehearsal in favour of going for tjala (honey ants)!!! We are missing our No 1 language teacher Lorna (Wilson) who is fighting the flu in Brisbane this week and look forward to meeting up with her on Thursday in Queensland. At the other end Ajita Cannings and Neil Simpson are preparing set and site for us and emails abound. Karl, Tessa, Adam and Alex are working overtime to complete the new ngapartji.org webpage to be launched by Shadow Minister for the Arts Peter Garrett at the Town Council in Alice Springs on Wednesday. We’ll also be showing the newly created Ngapartji Ngapartji project DVD for the first time in public. So crazy as we seem to have made this week for ourselves we’re looking forward to the launch as we are to jumping on the plane again the next day! It’s been a crowded few weeks in preparation but we still managed to slip in a stencil-making workshop with visitors Tom Sevil and Lou Smith. Deanne, Julie and Debra all came up with great designs and Maureen came in the next day to make her own. That's it for the news this week, perhaps until after the performaces in Adelaide. Hope to see some of you along the way! Dani P |
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| Last Updated ( Thursday, 14 June 2007 ) |