Dancing with a Difference: Reconfiguring the Poetic Politics of Aboriginal Ritual as National Spectacle¹

Abstract

This paper argues that indigenous dance is a poetic politics of cross‐cultural encounter that engages Aboriginal identities with those of the Australian nation. I question the nature of this encounter in terms of a performative dialogue that is both musically and kinesically presented by indigenous communities and ‘translated’ into political discourse by the government. The sentiments of ‘translation’ raise questions as to how local ritual expressions of Aboriginal dance can mediate dialogue when presented as national spectacle. What is being meditated? What is happening in the process of evocation? In this performative nexus, I focus specifically on the poetic politics of Yolngu ritual as spectacle; the nature of performative dialogue in terms of shared dance forms between indigenous communities; the problem of the authentication of dance identities; and how corporeal dispositions of indigenous dance genres influence national sentiment by their symbolic power. I pursue these issues through an analysis of how ancestral dances have been repositioned in national performance venues, such as concerts, cultural centres and ritual arenas, as a means of asserting performative statements about indigenous positioning within the nation‐state. The nature of this dialogue raises questions of authenticity and processes of authentication. It highlights indigenous concerns to control representations of indigeneity as national event, as well as a desire to convey something of the sentiment and sentience embodied in the poetics of their ancestral performances.

A Space and Time for a Generation to React: The Gattjirrk Cultural Festival in Milingimbi

“…The Yolngu jesters ( gabulay ) provoke ephemeral yet radical moments of co‐presence in which it is possible to encounter or, as Lapulung would say, ‘share culture’ with others who are open and receptive to taking up the challenge. In their own ways, all Festival performances, and in particular the ‘Zorba the Greek Yolngu Style’ dance, speak for their own time, thus creating a borderzone where the actors and spectators in the local or virtual community stage the drama of an ever evolving confrontation (Bruner :18; Magowan :317) in which the rules of production and reception are continuously redefined (Myers :679). With this performance, Yolngu adolescents ‘seize on the wing’ of laughter the brief openness of their Yolngu and balanda spectators and, provoking them to participate, they redefine the notion of ‘sharing culture’ in terms of a ‘reverse’ or ‘second contact’ tracing a ‘radically different border’ (Taussig :251) between ritual and pop dance, the comic and the serious, the old and the new, Yolngu and balanda .…”

“…In this paper, however, I turn my attention to the ways in which the Gattjirrk Festival remains an arena to articulate power relations between local groups in the community, as De Largy Healy () has documented for the Garma Festival, or between men and women, as Tonnaer (:97) has argued for the Airplane Dance performance at the Borroloola Festival. From this perspective, I look at the Gattjirrk Festival as a space where the younger generations can display their own particular way of seeing the world and thus enter into a ‘performative dialogue’ with the older generations as well as with balanda spectators on their own terms (Magowan :318).…”

“…It is important to note that, together with the Garma Festival, the Gattjirrk Festival is only one instance of the several ‘rituals’ or ‘expressions of diplomacy’ (Henry :189; Tamisari :117; Wild ) in which Yolngu people have used dance to demand attention and challenge spectators to engage, acknowledge, and react. In addition to past performative political exchanges between Yolngu people and the missionaries such as the ‘Adjustment Movement’ held on Elcho Island in 1957 (Berndt 2004[1962], also see Morphy ), and more recent performative encounters such as the one with then Prime Minister John Howard in 1997 (Magowan :317ff), I would like to include the spectacular ceremony performed by several clans from Yirrkala at the Northern Territory High Court to redress past legal injustices (Murray ) as well as numerous less spectacular and formal performances such as welcome ceremonies for politicians and state representatives (McIntosh :55ff; Trudgen ), Christian everyday meeting and larger revival gatherings (Magowan ; Slotte ), art exhibition openings in urban settings (Mundine ), graduation ceremonies to award degrees in education or in theology both in Darwin and in Northeast Arnhem Land communities, community shop and office openings, local and regional sporting events, as well as impromptu farewell performances for non‐indigenous teachers – including the anthropologist (Tamisari )…”

“…In what follows, I will focus on two types of performance always present at these Festivals, namely hip‐hop and burlesque dancing and how these styles have been elaborated into a well‐rehearsed choreography entitled ‘Zorba The Greek Yolngu Style’, a real success thanks to the global YouTube circulation, no doubt, another significant example of ‘the politics of cross‐cultural encounter’ (Magowan :309). This is a performance that was not simply geared to educate its different audiences but a tactic because, breaking through the categories, definitions, and order in which it has grown through parody, it provoked the spectators to participate.…”

Acknowledgment of Country: Intersecting Australian Pentecostalisms Reembeding Spirit in Place

“…Aboriginal ceremony is noted to hold complex meaning when performed in the urban space (Magowan 2000) but particularly also when performed by the state. In addition to welcome rituals, smoking ceremonies are featured at certain events, for example, as Akehurst (2012) notes incredulously, at the opening of the CSIRO, Australia's leading government agency for scientific research.…”