The collaborative dance piece is a creative fusion of Stephen Page and Bernadette Walong’s traditional and contemporary movements. The traditional Aboriginal movements are overtly shown throughout the piece and are evident when the women appear to be dancing with a broken leg. This movement is shown where the foot is flexed and the knee is bent representing the animalistic nature of Aboriginal culture. Throughout the section ‘Black’ the symbolism of heroism and authority of the male spirit are represented by the instinctive hunting style of the man and the movement of wiping of ochres across the forehead. Additionally the contemporary technique is represented in the section ‘Red’ by the use of parallel feet and contractions and release, used throughout the entire piece of Ochres. To this day, the unique fusion of…
The long challenge of indigenous people has been overcome by not only their feeling of dispossession of their land but also that dispossession of being emotionally hurt through that of indigenous culture and family. Passage one Red Indian Heritage is my reading of a plea by Chief Seattle to keep his peoples land and this their way of life; it informs my reading of Garry Foley’s article White Myths Damage Our Souls which was writing over one hundred years after Seattle’s. Both texts explore similar ideas of dispossession within indigenous people. Foley’s article informs the reader of that forced assimilation of Koori people in Australia has cost them their Aboriginality which is also something Chief Seattle mentioned in his speech as to what…
“We are the corroboree and we are the bora ground” is a sentence that combines both the land and the people to form a unity. This sparks discovery as it once remembers the fact that the people of its time discovered how indeed they were related to the land and all of its transcendent beings. To discover what creates the person you are is a discovery that depicts the personality you yield and for the Indigenous people and…
Characterization, Ivan Sen invites the viewer to ponder the issues that young Indigenous people face in contemporary Australia.…
I am very glad I chose Renes Judge to do this interview with, I have many friends who come from an aboriginal background; yet I have never met anyone so proud, and so immersed in her cultural, and spiritual beliefs. After knowing her for the past several months, and after this interview; I have learned more about the Plains Cree beliefs, and spirituality, then I ever have before in my life. The cleansing ceremony of the sweat lodge is something that interested me immensely, and we have discussed it many times. She explained that even if you are not of an aboriginal decent, the sweat lodge is something everyone should experience, I feel extremely grateful of her, for even offering to take me to a sweat lodge one day. For someone…
Culture is very important to the Aboriginals and they are connected to the land. They believe their land has spiritual, religious and social significance. Each group of Aborigines has different traditions and beliefs in relation to…
Culture and its, at times, inconceivable differences is an expression of concern for our society today. Silencing and elapsing of cultures and traditions seems to have escalated immensely. However, for the sake of our future, there is strong importance in the need of these traditions endurance. Therefore, contemporary dance has the aptitude in defying these unjust cultural judgments. We see countless contemporary choreographers, today, merging momentous techniques of contemporary with traditional aspects of cultures; for unerringly that reason.…
One night, some girls from the reservation proudly lead the rest of us in attempting their tribal dances, jumping almost skipping around the fire chanting in their native language. Watching the girls dance, I was introduced to a different culture and way of life that exists just forty-five minutes from my home. The diversity I have found at camp has broadened my world and perspectives.…
Today I’m going to talk about two themes that Leah Purcell raises in her performance “Box the Pony, which are both stereotyping and assimilation Towards the Aboriginal people. I’m also going to talk about the techniques in which she uses to help convey these ideas across to her audience like, blocking, dialect, dramatic pauses, physicalization and juxtaposition…
1. Anton Rabie and Ronnen Harary created a product that allowed customers to express their own creativity through styling grass hair that sprouted from a small humanlike head. They called this product Earth Buddy and the popularity soon spread like wildfire. Product sales started through Toronto-area flower shops and gift stores but as demand increased they were able to start distributing Earth Buddy at K-Mart, Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and stores alike. However, the production of Earth Buddies were time consuming and very dependent on the weather. The production process had a total of seven steps. The first step was filling which included six machines that filled the basic round heads with nylon stocking, sawdust and grass seed. The next step operators shaped the product’s eye-glasses. The rest of the process included moulding the face, placing the glasses on the nose, and gluing the buddies eyes in. Next the buddies were sent to the painter who finished off the buddy with a fabric paint mouth. The last step was to place the product on shelving to dry. In the right conditions, this step took about five hours, however, if humidity levels were higher, drying time increased to seven hours.…
Dancing, as a form of personal expression, cultural identity, physical enjoyment and worship, embodies this duality of purpose at Powwow. Another aspect of Native American spirituality is the belief that all elements of the world- the sky, the grass, the rocks, the animals, the wind, the sounds, the people - are relatives, and are to be recognized and treated with appropriate respect. Worshipping, singing, dancing and helping others are all means of spiritual participation by which the Indians unite with these elements and with each…
Aboriginals have always had a strong link between them and the land with the belief of the Dreamtime and the art, symbols, rituals and totems that came with it. After the white settlement, the way in which aboriginals lived their everyday life took a dramatic turn. It had affected their culture for many generations with a disconnection with the land to them.…
In conclusion, the reason I chose this artwork is because I admire the way Vernon Ah Kee has illustrated how the Aboriginal Australians felt when they were being oppressed by the European…
In this movie we see a negative stereotypical representation of Aborigines, homelessness and the representation of their pride in their culture.…
I was most impressed by the aboriginal paintings. There is a sad history that surrounds the natives of Australia. When the white settlers mostly from United Kingdom came to Australia in the 19th century, it was inhabited by natives. A violent confrontation ensued between these two ethnic groups. Most of the children of the aboriginals were forcibly taken away from their parents and brought up by white parents. the adults were taken to settlements where there was hardly any cultural inter-mingling. The children of the natives were known as the stolen generation named such because they were…