Mini review: Coranderrk at Coranderrk

Coranderrk: We Will Show The Country
La Mama
at Coranderrk
21 February 2016
coranderrk.com
minutesofevidence.com.au

The sun setting at Coranderrk at Coranderrk

Coranderrk: We Will Show The Country was developed by La Mama and Ilbijerri and first seen at La Mama in 2010. It's a verbatim-theatre collaboration between Indigenous and non-Indigenous organisations and artists about the 1881 Victorian Parliamentary Coranderrk Inquiry into the management of the Coranderrk Aboriginal Reserve, near Healsville in the Yarra Valley.

The production has toured – I saw it in 2011 – and on Sunday 21 February, it was presented for the first time on country at Coranderrk.

This isn't a show that needs another review – there are plenty.

It was an honour to be there among descendants and families and to hear the voices of the past come to life at the same place they were spoken 135 years ago.

From the Welcome to Country that didn't need a smoking ceremony because everyone who was there had stomped away any bad spirits to looking at photos and realising they were taken at the house I could see from where I was sitting, this production continues to ensure that that Coranderrk's story won't be lost and now belongs to everyone who sees it.

What Melbourne loved in 2013, part 3

Today is about artistic directors with Marcia Ferguson from Big West, Rachel Maza from ILBIJERRI and Ella Caldwell from Red Stitch.

It's also about brilliant stuff that I missed.

Marcia Ferguson
Artistic Director, Big West Festival

MARCIA: A school student was crouched over the footpath in front of a large, prominent city bank. Looking more closely, we saw she was laying out five-cent coins to make the word GREED. The bank's security guard was getting agitated, standing right over her as she pored over her design. After yelling at her – “this street belongs to the bank!” – in the face of implacable concentration, he called the police. The girl scarpered as they arrived. An argument ensued between the police and a guard over who owns the street. When they'd all gone, pedestrians stooped to pick up the coins but very few people had the courage to touch the word GREED. This was my mecca moment of theatre for 2013.

And, of course, there was the Big West Festival (finished on 1 December). We got to see everything everyone has worked for since May 2012!

It's more than a festival. It's something new: it's art works driven equally by community and professional artists of heart and rigour. It's art by the audience. It's slow burn. It's art made over a long time, a great indicator of quality!

I love the moments where events teeter between performance and participation. For instance, at this festival, theatrical all-stars Born In A Taxi led the audience masterfully into the creation of a performance they didn't know they were making, and two Dinjerra Primary preps conducted recordings at the school market and left them for the artist to collect.

The festival is human, it's warm. It offers simple ways for people to make art. It has something to say. It’s about what's happening right now made by the very people who are living amongst it.

SM: My biggest disappointment of the year was not being able to get to a single Big West show or event. I really tried, but sometimes the diary tetris just doesn't work. Next year, I promise.

Rachel Maza
Artistic Director, ILBIJERRI Theatre Company

Photo by Michael Corridore

RACHEL: In June 2013 I had the great fortune of being invited to attend the Matariki Development Festival in Wellington, New Zealand. It blew me away!

This festival showcased some excellent new work and it was great to see what our first peoples' neighbours-across-the-way were making. The number of works and the calibre of work being produced over there is so inspiring. It also provided a forum for me to meet these amazing first nations theatre makers from around the world.

In Australia, it’s easy to feel like we're the only colonised nation but there, in that space, being able to draw direct parallels in their experiences and ours was empowering and enlightening.

And of course, Beautiful One Day! (Which finished at Arts House on 1 December.) Working with the Palm Island community, version 1.0 and Belvoir again has been exhilarating experience. This multi-faceted collaboration has challenged me as a performer and as a director. This latest remount has seen the work grow and develop into something we are all so proud of.

SM: Seriously, there was so much happening in the last two weeks of November this year that I missed as much as I saw (and I saw a lot). Missing Beautiful One Day is another regret.

But, the most exciting news for ILBIJERRI is that they're taking Uncle Jack to London, with Jack Charles V The Crown, directed by Rachel, having been invited to perform at the Barbican in February.

There's more of Rachel at issimomag.com.

Ella Caldwell

Artistic Director and Ensemble Member, Red Stitch

ELLA: So much great theatre this year! A standout for me was Kids Killing Kids (by MKA at the Melbourne Fringe) – I loved this. It was energised, unique and brave. The experience was electrifying at the time and has stayed with me.

On our home turf (Red Stitch), some key moments: The exquisite, detailed life that existed onstage between Julia Blake and Ensemble Member Tim Ross in 4000 Miles by Amy Herzog. Oh, and the moment during Midsummer (at the 2013 Geelong season)by David Greig and Gordon McIntyre when Ben (Prendergast) and I realised that an audience member had just vomited in their hands rather than leave and miss the last few moments of the show.

SM: I remember seeing Ella in a play years ago at the Courthouse and thinking that she's going to make it. I'm still never disappointed when she's on a stage. But my highlight for 2013 was easily her performance in Midsummer (even if I saw it in late 2012) and I'm really looking forward to her first year as the new Red Stitch AD.

And see what Ella's looking forward to in 2014 at issimo.com.

Part 1

Part 2
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13

Part 14

Part 15

Part 16

Part 17

2012 part 1, with links to the rest

Review: Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country

Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country
Ilbijerri, the Minutes of Evidence Project and La Mama
18 November 2011
La Mama Courthouse Theatre
to 27 November
www.lamama.com.au

Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country lets past voices be heard as Ilbijerri and La Mama continue to tell stories that we need to know and to share.

Telling a story that is so important to many Victorians, and with Liz Jones, Melodie Reynolds, Jack Charles, Greg Fryer, Jim Daly, Peter Finlay, Glenn Shea, Tom Long and Syd Brisbane as the cast, Coranderrk was sold out before it opened – but there's a waiting list and fortune favours those who take a chance.

Until now, I didn't know about Coranderrk. In 1863 near Healesville, the Coranderrk station was established as an 'Aboriginal Reserve'  by the surviving members of displaced Kulin clans. Working with a European lay-preacher, John Green, Coranderrk developed into a self-supporting farm community and welcomed members of other displaced clans. By 1877, the land had become valuable to the surrounding farmers and Board for the Protection of Aborigines dismissed Green as manager.

With conditions deteriorating and the threat of being displaced again, the men and women of Coranderrk began a protest that included letter writing, petitions and deputations to see the Chief Minister in Melbourne. As a result, in 1881 a parliamentary inquiry was established.

Like My Name is Rachel Corrie (from the diary and emails of an American student killed at Gaza) and the recent MIAF Aftermath (from interviews with Iraqi refugees), verbatim theatre explores history and events by using the voices of those who were there. Coranderrk is a verbatim reading of the Minutes of Evidence of the inquiry.

Writers Andrea James and Giordano Nanni started with the 140-page document and present the evidence of 19 (of the 69) witnesses. The story is painful and hopeful, but its heart and power is hearing the lost voices of people like William Barack, Robert Wandon, Ann Fraser Bon and John Green. Sometimes our names are all we leaveThe final reading of the names signed on the original petition is one of the most moving moments of theatre this year.

Less than a re-creation and more than a reading, the characterisations confirm where our sympathies should lie. Given the honesty of the recorded words, there may be more strength is letting the audience make their own decisions. People who do things we find abhorrent believe that they are doing the right thing, and I would like to have seen more of the humanity in the choices if every character.

However, nothing can distract from this story and by letting it be told, Coranderrk and its people are taken out of forgotten history documents and become a living part of all our stories.

Get on the waiting list.

This review originally appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Photo by Steven Rhall

MIAF review: Foley

MIAF 2011

Foley

Ilbijerri Theatre Company, Melbourne Festival and Sydney Festival

13 October 2011

Fairfax, the Arts Centre

to 15 October

I saw Foley surrounded by teenagers from Warrnambool. 

At first I shhhed and glared at the rude boys who didn't know theatre etiquette, but listening to their commentary was as fascinating as the story Gary Foley told about his transformation from angry young to grumpy old man.

Like Jack Charles V The Crown,  this year Ilbijerri and our arts festivals give the stage to activist, actor, academic and ratbag Gary Foley, who tells his story of becoming politicised and his experience of the Black Power political movement in Australia. Unlike Uncle Jack's story, we're left without getting close to the person, but his telling is compelling and angry and without a rainbow serpent in sight.

Wearing a Viva Fidel t-shirt and a black jacket with a glittery black-power fist, Foley begins his story in 1965 when he was the only black kid at school and living in a "redneck hellhole" where it never occurred to him that a segregated cinema wasn't normal.

Meanwhile, his history begins at the turn of the 20th century when Aboriginal water front workers were influenced by US black power movements and Fred Maynard formed the Australian Aboriginal Progress Association. Through his active involvement in Redfern, the Tent Embassy and early black theatre, Foley's history is not the one I learnt at school.

As us who were alive in the 70s saw missed parts of our history, chuckled at the recognition and despaired at the lost opportunities, my teenage theatre mates were so bored that they may get detention from their embarrassed teacher.

As a QandA-watching, theatre-going, Greens-voting, pseudo-hippy liberal, I hung on every one of Foley's word. I laughed at every political reference (damn it, I remember believing in Labor), was fascinated by the Tent Embassy footage that I hadn't seen, had no idea that teen-hero Simon Townsend (Wonder World) was a journo and nearly wet myself at the "Welcome to colour TV" and white-mask sketches from the never-screened pilot for Basically Black from 1972.

These kids didn't. They didn't even get the obvious parallel between the mining industries current squillion dollar campaign to create fear and the one that turned Hawke. One didn't even know that Eddie Maguire used to be on The Footy Show.

Chatting with them after, I have a much better idea of the show through their eyes and despaired at an education system that doesn't seem to reflect on Australia's recent history or current affairs. These teenagers have no connection to any of the events.

Foley's ultimate message is that for all our Sorry t-shirts and the acceptance of Aboriginal theatre in our arts festivals, we really haven't made that much progress and he encourages his young audience to take up the fight. Not a chance of this happening with these kids.

But, that's not so bad. If I'd been told the same history when I was 13ish, I wouldn't have got it either.  These kids said "no shit" when Foley showed the Aboriginal flag (and told us how it was really created), they giggled at the word "boong" because they thought it was "bong" – and they kept saying "bong" – and at "coon".   They may not have studied Keating's Redfern speech – or know who Keating is or where Redfern is – but these are teens who have never uttered "boong" or even know about  "coon" and they thought that no one could be so stupid as to not recognise the Aboriginal flag.

They didn't get the wordy show about our missed history, but they didn't see a black dude; they saw a boring dude. And if that's the colour-free attitude they're taking into life, that's a damn fine step in the right direction. They'll care about history as they become part of it

This review first appeared on AussieTheatre.com

Review: Jack Charles V The Crown

MIAF 2010

Jack Charles V The Crown

Ilbijerri Theatre Company

Melbourne International Arts Festival

13 October 2010

the Arts Centre, Fairfax Studio

to 17 October

www.melbournefestival.com.au

Jack Charles V The Crown opens with a film of Jack injecting himself with heroin. His isn't a story with secrets.  Nor is it about addiction and relief. It's a story about hope and understanding told with heart and cheekiness. It's Jack's story, and now it's ours.

As the film is shown, Jack sits at pottery wheel making a vase. He ran the pottery shop at the Castlemaine Gaol, where he learnt to teach, and he reminds us that clay is land and that Bunjil the eagle made humanity from clay. It's also a story about identity and belonging.

Although he appeared on our screens and stages in the 70s, Jack Charles become best known after the documentary Bastardy was released in cinemas and shown on the ABC. I was at the first Melbourne International Film Festival screening in 2008 and where I was reminded how that medium of storytelling can change lives and attitudes. 

With director Rachael Maza Long and writer John Romeril helping to bring his story into the personal world of the theatre, Jack tells stories not included in Bastardy and the impact of being in the public eye. After the film, people talked to him on the streets and photos and friends appeared from his childhood, including the daughter of workers from the Box Hill Boys Home who was Jack's inseparable friend 56 years ago.

In the boys home, Jack grew up thinking that the Queen was his mum and had no link with his Aboriginal family until, as a teenager, he took a tram to the corner of Gertrude and Brunswick streets, was recognised and sat in a pub talking to people who knew where he was from. This act led to his first incarceration as his foster mother didn't approve and Jack was sent to the young offenders home.

Jack reminds his audience that to feel vulnerable is a terrible thing and, as a stolen person, he apologises to the people he stole from.  Jack was stolen from his mother when he was four months old. As a society we talk about the stolen generation with reverent tones, but it doesn't take long to hear voices saying that that it's time we got over it. Babies were ripped from arms of their mothers. I don't know how that pain can ever heal. Many of those babies are still with us and maybe the tiny way we can help is by listening to their stories and making their stories part of all our lives.

This review appears on AussieTheatre.com.

Photo by Bindi Cole