The Aboriginal Artists Agency and the Prominence of Indigenous Music and Dance in the Growth of the Australian Arts Industry

Abstract

This article focuses on the formative role of the Aboriginal Artists Agency in building today’s global market for Australian Indigenous artists. From 1976 to 1986, the Agency worked with Australian Indigenous musicians and dancers to undertake many innovative recording and touring projects. This study addresses the Agency’s early innovations in encouraging and supporting the recording and touring aspirations of Australian Indigenous performers across a hitherto unexplored continuum of traditional and popular styles, as well as the Agency’s contributions to catalysing similar breadth in scholarly discourse. The study aims to demonstrate how the Agency’s ambitious program of recording and touring projects with a wide array of prolific Australian Indigenous artists contributed to generating new and diversified market demand for their talents and works both within Australia and internationally.

Acknowledgements

I acknowledge the Indigenous peoples of the lands on which I live and work and pay my respect to their elders. I extend my grateful thanks to Anthony Wallis and Jennifer Steele for their foresight and generosity in making this research possible, and to the Australian Research Council for funding this important work (DP150104389). Thanks also to Djirrimbilpilwuy Garawirrtja, Djangirrawuy Garawirrtja and Joe Gumbula for their mentorship and guidance of my career towards this research, and to my colleagues at the University of Melbourne, University of Adelaide, Australian National University and New York University for their encouragement and support.

Notes

1 The Australia Council for the Arts was initially called the Australian Council for the Arts until it was given statutory authority under the Australia Council Act in March 1975.

2 These public ceremonial song traditions, along with their corresponding dance traditions, included kab kar of East Torres Strait, na of West Torres Strait, Wik-Mungkan apalech of West Cape York, Yolŋu manikay of East Arnhem Land, kun-borrk of West Arnhem Land, yoi of the Tiwi Islands and Warlpiri purlapa of the Tanami Desert. The Gupapuyŋu App (Charles Darwin University 2016) provides a free downloadable Yolŋu language pronunciation guide.

3 I have archived these recordings for Yolŋu community access in the Aaron Corn Personal Archive at the Mulka Project in Yirrkala.

4 As the process of accessioning the Agency’s collection into the National Library of Australia has yet to be completed, this article refers to these materials by the Archival Folder or Folio Numbers (AF) and Archival Box Numbers (AB or FOLIO) in which they are located, as designated through my Australian Research Council Discovery Project (DP150104389). This is the format in which the National Library of Australia has received this collection. Materials relating to the Agency’s extensive copyright clearance work are thus located in AAA_AF_011 and AAA_AF_015 in AAA_AB_002, AAA_AF_018 and AAA_AF_025 in AAA_AB_003, AAA_AF_075 in AAA_AB_014, and AAA_AF_170 in AAA_AB_032.

5 AAA_AF_171 in two parts across AAA_AB_032 and AAA_FOLIO_003.

6 AAA_AF_141 in AAA_AB_008.

7 AAA_AF_161 in AAA_AB_026.

8 AAA_AF_048 in AAA_AB_008.

9 AIAS was legislatively renamed the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) by the Parliament of Australia in 1989.

10 AAA_AF_063 in AAA_AB_011 and AAA_AF_155 in AAA_AB_025.

11 AAA_AF_151 in AAA_AB_024.

12 AAA_AF_174 in AAA_AB_013.

13 AAA_AF_098 and AAA_AF_099 in AAA_AB_018.

14 AAA_AB_023, and AAA_AF_034, AAA_AF_035 and AAA_AF_052 in AAA_AB_024.

15 AAA_AF_149 and AAA_AF_150.

16 AAA_AF_059 in AAA_AB_011.

17 AAA_AF_073 in AAA_AB_013.

18 AAA_AF_114 in AAA_AB_020.

19 AAA_AF_128 in AAA_AB_022.

20 AAA_AF_053 and AAA_AF_054 in AAA_AB_024.

21 For further discussion of Soft Sands’s music and Yolŋu cultural roots, see Corn and Gumbula (2005).

22 AAA_AF_006 in AAA_AB_001.

23 AAA_AF_019 in AAA_AB_003.

24 AAA_AF_061 in two parts in AAA_AB_011.

25 AAA_AF_038 in four parts in AAA_AB_006.

26 AAA_AF_078 in AAA_AB_014.

27 AAA_AF_093 and AAA_AF_094 in AAA_AB_017.

28 This work would position Grotanelli (1987) to include Australia in the expansive Italian scholarly book series Storia Universale dell’Arte.

29 AAA_AF_127 in AAA_AB_022.

30 AAA_AF_056, AAA_AF_057 and AAA_AF_058 in AAA_AB_010.

31 AAA_AF_178 in ten parts across AAA_AB_034 and AAA_AB_035.

32 AAA_AF_035 in AAA_AB_005 and AAA_AF_092 in AAA_AB_016.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aaron Corn

Aaron Corn is a Professor at the University of Melbourne, where he works as Inaugural Director of the Indigenous Knowledge Institute. He holds a PhD in Music from the University of Melbourne and serves as a Director of the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia. He maintains an interdisciplinary research program supported by grants and fellowships from the Australian Research Council and other bodies that involves extensive collaborations with Australian Indigenous colleagues and stakeholders to pursue their research interests. This work engages with traditional ideals and expressions that remain fundamental to Indigenous communities in Australia, and contemporary approaches to maintaining their continuing cultural survival. He has previously served as National President of the Musicological Society of Australia and now sits on the Board of Directors of the International Council for Traditional Music’s new Indigenous Study Group. E-mail: [email protected]