(This is the second part of Musical Dispatch from the Front of 11 August 2018. Use Google Translate for text you cannot understand.)
In the Big Name No Blankets film, Rachel Perkins said “I saw George (Rrurrampu) and the Warumpi band play to thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people all around Australia, and I saw how George could reach out and touch people, open their hearts to make them celebrate and embrace Aboriginality, and just DANCE with us and sing our song…” We in Yuendumu got to see that too, we got to sing and dance.
In 1986 the blackfella/whitefella tour came to Yuendumu. 1986 was also the year in which what was to become the most successful Aboriginal Band ever (Yothu Yindi) was formed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BSAqjtSbkw
Peter Garrett’s unique dancing style both intrigued and amused us. When musician Peter Garrett became a politician, he no longer danced. He couldn’t because his bed was burning.
Are you the one that’s ready with a helping hand,
Are you the one der begreift these family plans?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GULW1sOpzo
In 1992 a group of us drove all night to go to the inaugural Broome Stompen Ground Festival.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHYbwHTGOv4
Scrap Metal and Yothu Yindi were there. The Warumpi band had reformed to be there. ABC TV was there and Australia got to celebrate and embrace Aboriginality. And we were there and we got to sing and dance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3RAPV7p-nc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XH3E22JAQo
Micah and myself used to drive into Alice Springs to take part in the Monday night jam-session at the Riverside Hotel featuring the Booze Brothers. We’d run into other Aboriginal musicians such as Sammy Butcher and Frank Yamma that would travel large distances to be there. We’d fire up the mostly white audiences and get them to get up and dance. On one occasion I walked in and the bouncer made a gesture acknowledging my naked (I didn’t have a case) trumpet. When I looked back I saw Micah held up at the door. By coincidence my entry had resulted in “a full house”. My offer to swap places with Micah as he was “a far better musician” bounced. I insisted on talking to Herman (the Booze Brothers musician in charge) and we somehow managed to squeeze Micah into the full house. Micah didn’t play or dance that evening.
Some years later our son Joseph went to an Alice Springs music venue. His friend Grant was refused entry on the basis of the clothes he was wearing. They retreated to their car and swapped clothes. To no avail, Grant was again refused entry. When Mark Twain said: “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society”, he left out skin colour!
I forget exactly when but in Yuendumu we were treated to a concert that featured both Slim Dusty and Yothu Yindi. A veritable musical smorgasbord.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUi2Ae0ksxE
Before you object to the last verse “ his skin was black but his heart was white” keep in mind Louis Armstrong’s Black and Blue “I’m white inside…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSjH1h7-m5E
It is all a matter of context and sentiment.
A state funeral was held for Slim Dusty in 2003. He was 76.
A state funeral was held for Yothu Yindi’s lead singer, Mandawuy Yunupingu in 2013. He was 56.
In the film No Name No Blankets Rachel Perkins tells of when George Rrurrampu died in 2007 (he was 50) a phone call to the responsible minister suggesting a state funeral was responded with “We don’t hold State Funerals for musicians”
The ethnocentric assimilationist interventionists that are intent on Closing the Gap (instead of Bridging it), don’t dance. They don’t begreif much.
If they have their way, …there will be NO dancing.
नृत्य पर रखें
Frank
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-eqrc_jVVA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWYUsKCYPLg