Sydney Festival 08 - Ngapartji Ngapartji
Ngapartji Ngapartji, Belvoir St Theatre, January 10-February 10; www.belvoir.com.au
Twenty-some years ago a young Aboriginal performer named Ernie Dingo was making his debut at Downstairs Belvoir St. He did a bit of audience participation where he got the adoring throng to tell him how to say "yes" or "no" in Italian, French, German, Russian, Spanish... and then he asked if anyone knew those words in an Australian Aboriginal language. The stunned silence and squirm of embarrassment that rippled around the room was palpable as those who had, to that moment assumed themselves to be a progressive, pro-black and altogether admirable bunch, were suddenly confronted - with sly humour - by evidence to the contrary.
Twenty-some years on, young Aboriginal performer Trevor Jamieson is making his debut at Upstairs Belvoir St and poses very much the same question during Ngapartji Ngapartji and, despite walking across the harbour bridge, much earnest talk about reconciliation and much sneering from the other side about “black armband” history, the stunned silence and squirm of embarrassment that greeted his observation - about language - suggests that the more things change, the more they stay the same. (Plus ca change in French, but god knows what it is in Pitjanjatjara.)
It was a startling - if largely unrecognised - moment of historic conjunction in an otherwise wondrously joyous evening. Ngapartji Ngapartji - meaning “I give you something, you give me something” - has finally arrived at the Sydney Festival after a long period of development between writer-director Scott Rankin (Big hART), Jamieson and the communities from which it springs; and which began with a work-in-progress season at the 2005 Melbourne Festival before continuing in various permutations around the country. Part of the original process was the learning of language but this has now become voluntary rather than mandatory.
The version that now exists must be pretty much the optimum for stage performance with its dynamic central performance from Jamieson, the powerful, moving presence of the “chorus” of elder women and the honing of the story strands to a discursive, rambling (think Ten Canoes) series of narratives that are both charming and illuminating.
While Ngapartji Ngapartji is “about” the largely hidden and unacknowledged history of the British atomic testing program at Maralinga (Spinifex Country), it is also a universal story of diaspora, displacement, cultural imperialism and cultural strength and regeneration which many Australians from many different backgrounds could relate to and recognise.
Yet because of the absence of angry finger pointing or self pity which tends to characterise this kind of work (from whichever culture it springs) Ngapartji Ngapartji is one of the most powerful and entertaining evocations of history-as-theatre I can recall. It switches easily and unselfconsciously back and forth between English and Pitjantjatjara to relate, among other things, what happened to unknowing blacks and unwitting whites (guinea pig English soldiers) when the Menzies government welcomed Britain’s bomb testing program into the empty and useless outback of South Australia (a 20th century Terra Nullius).
Some of this is familiar, some of it isn’t: the striking stage set of black sand and rather beautiful arrangements of white bones tell of one of the most gruesome aspects of those years: when the bones of dead children - of both races - were taken, without the knowledge or consent of parents, to be ground up and tested for radioactivity. And then there is the story of the change in wind direction and how it affected Adelaide and Tony Blair’s family …
Ngapartji Ngapartji is an evocation of a dark period of modern Australian history from which light now emanates through a memorable work of art and a brilliant night's entertainment. Don’t miss it. Selling fast!
And if you want to know more about Pitjantjatjara language learning check out http://ninti.ngapartji.org
