Sustaining Australia's Indigenous Music and Dance Traditions: The Role of the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia

Abstract

This article examines the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia as a dedicated network of Indigenous performers, and allied scholars and curators, to protect and sustain Australia's highly endangered traditions of Indigenous music, dance and ceremonies. The paper examines how the National Recording Project has developed into a community of practice for the making and archiving of Indigenous Australian music and dance recordings in response to Indigenous community agency and concerns, and how its annual Symposium on Indigenous Music and Dance has developed into a unique forum for intercultural exchange. Strategies for this initiative's future growth are identified and explored.

Notes

¹ All spellings of names and words from the Yolŋu languages follow the conventions used today throughout the Yolŋu communities of Arnhem Land (Zorc 1996).

² Allan Marett, Linda Barwick, Marcia Langton, Aaron Corn, Mandawuy Yunupiŋu, Alan James and Witiyana Marika, ‘Planning for Sustainability of the National Indigenous Recording Project: A Pilot Project’ (ARC 2005), Linkage Project.

³ Aaron Corn and Allan Marett, ‘Realising Performance Traditions on Country: A Pilot Study Towards the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia’ (The University of Sydney 2005), Research and Development Grant.

⁴ Stephen Wild, ‘Milpirri: A Revitalisation Movement in Central Australia’ (AIATSIS 2009), Research Grant. Nicholas Evans, Sabine Höng, Linda Barwick, Bruce Birch, Robert Mailhammer, Gretel Schwörer-Kohl and Dietmar Zaefferer, ‘Inyman Kalmu: Languages of the Cobourg Region, North Australia, Phase II’ (Volkswagen Foundation 2009–2010), Documentation of Endangered Languages Project. Margaret Gummow, John Giacon and Suellyn Tighe, ‘Revitalising Gamilaraay Songs and Dances: Using New Technologies to Create Community-based Resources’ (AIATSIS 2010), Research Grant. Sally Treloyn and Allan Marett, ‘Strategies for Sustaining Aboriginal Song and Dance in the Modern World: The Mowanjum and Fitzroy River Valley Communities of Western Australia’ (ARC 2009–2012), Linkage Project. Myfany Turpin (Australian Postdoctoral Fellowship), ‘Singing the Dreaming: Exploring the Relationship between Language and Music in Arandic Song-Poetry’ (ARC 2010–2012), Discovery Project. Ngarukuruwala, ‘To Develop Music Resources from Archived Material to Preserve and Maintain Tiwi Language and Song Practice’ (Australia 2011), Maintenance of Indigenous Languages and Records Grant.

⁵ Aaron Corn (Future Fellowship), ‘Indigenising the Semantic Web: Ontologies for Indigenous Knowledge and Heritage Resources on a Machine-readable Web’ (ARC 2009–2013), Future Fellowships Project.

⁶ Neparrŋa Gumbula (Indigenous Research Fellow) and Aaron Corn, ‘Elder Assessments of Early Material Culture Collections from Arnhem Land and Contemporary Access Needs’ (ARC 2007–2008), Discovery Indigenous Researchers Development Project. Neparrŋa Gumbula (Australian Research Fellow–Indigenous), ‘To Wake Them Up Again: Digital Futures for the International Diaspora of Early Ethnographic Collections from Arnhem Land’ (ARC 2010–2012), Discovery Indigenous Researchers Development Project.

⁷ Wanta Patrick (Discovery Indigenous Award), Aaron Corn and Stephen Wild, ‘Early Collections of Warlpiri Cultural Heritage and Resulting Community Access Needs in Remote Desert Australia’ (ARC 2012–2014), Discovery Indigenous Project.

⁸ Marett, Allan, Michael Walsh, Nicholas Reid and Lysbeth Ford, ‘Preserving Australia's Endangered Heritages: Murrinh-patha Song at Wadeye’ (ARC 2004–2008), Discovery Project.

⁹ I edited this response based on an initial draft by Allan Marett with substantial contributions by David Manmurulu, Payi-Linda Ford, Russell Taylor, Sally Treloyn and Grace Koch (National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia 2011).

¹⁰ This statement was prepared and ratified by delegates at the inaugural Symposium on Indigenous Music and Dance at Gunyaŋara in Arnhem Land in August 2002 during the fourth Garma Festival of Traditional Culture.

¹¹ This statement was prepared by the Australia and New Zealand Regional Committee of the ICTM and endorsed unanimously by the General Assembly during the forty-first World Conference in St John's, Canada, in July 2011.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aaron Corn

Aaron Corn works with endangered intellectual traditions that remain fundamental to Indigenous cultural survival in Australia, and inform contemporary Indigenous engagements across different legal systems and cultures. He is President of Musicological Society of Australia, and a Co-Director of the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia. He is an Associate Professor in the School of Music at the Australian National University, where he also holds an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship that seeks to apply emerging Semantic Web techniques to digital archives management for endangered cultural resources. Email: [email protected]