| culture and identity: news index (return to eniar.org) |
Nulungu Lecture 2008 |
| Bay of Plenty 7 August 2008 - Last week, the High Court of Australia ruled that the Northern Territory government could not grant commercial fishing operators licenses to work in areas that fall within the boundaries of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act. |
| Kakadu tourism to go the indigenous way 31 July 2008 - NATASHA Nadji sat for hours at the feet of her grandfather, the legendary "Kakadu Man", as he told stories passed on through his Aboriginal ancestors over 50,000 years. |
| Maori war cry stirs Tahu's blood 25 July 2008 - WALLABIES debutant Timana Tahu will feel his Maori blood coursing through his veins when he faces the All Blacks' haka tomorrow and is angry the Australian side does not have an Aboriginal war dance with which to respond. |
| Dance groups set for first joint performance 25 July 2008 - The Wagambirra and Yarringan Indigenous dance groups will be giving their first joint public performance on the 28th July at 2.30pm, at Cowra High School. |
| Didgeridoo debut on classical stage 24 July 2008 - Didgeridoo player and composer William Barton grew up with both traditional Aboriginal music and classical music. |
| Aboriginal singer beats poverty and prejudice to top Australian charts 17 July 2008 - The Guardian - A gifted Aboriginal singer who was born blind and brought up in poverty has taken Australia by storm, topping the mainstream music charts and earning plaudits for his "sublime" voice. |
| Aboriginal art brings spirituality to WYD 17 July 2008 - Aboriginal dancers perform before the opening mass for World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. |
| UN celebrates indigenous art 12 July 2008 - INDIGENOUS artists from the Torres Strait Islands brought their distinctive artworks to the UN this week to celebrate the survival of their culture. |
| 'Caring for culture, caring for country' 10 July 2008 - The recent focus on climate change in Australia is welcome, writes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Tom Calma*. But a national plan of action is greatly diminished unless Indigenous Australians are meaningfully engaged in the process. |
| Territory elders to lead WYD youth 9 July 2008 - Aboriginal elders will chaperone young Territorians welcoming the Pope to Australia. |
| Author helps celebrate Indigenous culture 7 July 2008 - A world-renowned Indigenous author says there is still much to be done in acknowledging Australia's history and moving forward with reconciliation. |
| Australian story strikes chord in UK 1 July 2008 - The Black Arm Band's musical journey through indigenous Australian history proves a broad traveller. |
| The Black Arm Band 'murundak' 28 June 2008 - Ethic Now UK - In its UK premier and first performance outside Australia, 28-piece ensemble The Black Arm Band brings its show entitled 'murundak' to the Royal Festival Hall as part of Lift Festival 2008. The company’s mission is to perform, promote and celebrate contemporary Australian indigenous music. |
| Black Arm Band should be big 27 June 2008 - Evening Standard UK - Part Aboriginal soul revue, part civil rights statement, The Black Arm Band have been a huge hit in Australia, where this year's official apology to Indigenous people felt long overdue. Organisers took a huge risk bringing this sprawling 28-piece collective to London. Last night, it paid off. |
| Torres Strait museum takes out top reconciliation award 26 June 2008 - The 2008 Queensland Reconciliation Awards for Business were announced in Brisbane recently, with a unique business that promotes the contribution of Torres Strait Islanders to the war effort during WWII taking out the top prize. |
| Aboriginal languages to be revived using all resources 26 June 2008 - An Aboriginal Language Conference held in Adelaide recently, talked about reviving endangered Aboriginal languages through schools in South Australia. |
| Australia's soul singer 20 June 2008 - The Guardian - The racist murder of a Perth teenager took Pete Postlethwaite on an unforgettable journey of musical and personal discovery. For me, it began at His Majesty's Theatre in Perth in 2003. It was the first time I'd been to Australia. |
| Australian history in the songlines 17 June 2008 - The Times UK - Three decades of Aboriginal artists will be singing the stories of their people's struggles in London this month |
| Aboriginal communities expressing themselves through rap 9 June 2008 - There’s a very interesting video on ABC Online at the moment about Aboriginal communities using rap to pass down their language and stories. Aboriginal culture is traditionally an oral one and, in the absence of the printing press, stories were passed down family lines and within cultural groups using creative media such as song, music and dance. |
| The Australian story as never before 8 June 2008 - The Telegrph UK - Australian literature has come of age, giving a distinctive voice to that vast, isolated, southern continent, involuntarily settled by Europeans in the 19th century. There is a parallel Australia, though, and Carpentaria is the Australian story that we 'know already' but haven't yet heard. |
| The roots of Aboriginal activism 6 June 2008 - There are times in a nation's history when events combine to place particular moments in its collective memory. The Prime Minister's apology to the Stolen Generations on 13 February this year is likely to be one. Its timing, planning and execution moved the hearts of many Australians. For similar reasons, the Federal Government's intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities in 2007 is likely to be another. |
| Carpentaria, by Alexis Wright 25 April 2008 - From its opening lines, Carpentaria is never going to be your average novel. Starting before time began, it explains how the land was made: "The ancestral serpent, a creature larger than storm clouds, came down from the stars, laden with its own creativity..." |
| Aboriginal musician astonishes Australian audiences 22 April 2008 - IHT - Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu doesn't speak much, but when he takes up his guitar, he sings, literally and figuratively. |
| Yunupingu scores Sir Elton support 18 April 2008 - GEOFFREY Gurrumul Yunupingu's path to stardom will take a giant leap when he supports Elton John at his Darwin concert. |
| Aborigines to welcome Pope Benedict 17 April 2008 - Aboriginal elders will be the first Australians to officially welcome the Pope when he arrives in Sydney for the Catholic Church's World Youth Day (WYD) in July. |
| Aboriginal site among Australia's oldest 8 April 2008 - Aboriginal tools found in Western Australia and dating back 35,000 years are surprisingly sophisticated and varied, archaeologists say. |
| NT's Zorba troupe dreaming of Greece 3 April 2008 - THE group of Aboriginal dancers whose version of the Zorba dance became a hit video on the internet has been invited to Greece. |
| Aborigines 'locked out of real economy' 1 April 2008 - Aboriginal people are condemned to poverty and treated as "museum pieces" by governments whose education policies have locked a generation out of the real economy. |
| Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts board appointments 25 March 2008 - Media Release - The Australia Council for the Arts welcomes Arts Minister Peter Garrett's appointment of Lynette Narkle to its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts board for a three-year term from February 2008. |
Attacking the great digital divide |
Utopia study outcome bucks trends |
| Guides to help do the right thing with Indigenous culture 28 February 2008 - Media Release - The Australia Council for the Arts has released a fully revised second edition of its protocol guides to help Australians better understand the use of Indigenous cultural material. |
| Aboriginal dance group 'educating' the world 10 February 2008 - Hundreds of Canberrans were lucky to see Australia's most widely toured act this morning as part of the National Multicultural Festival. |
| Aboriginal languages 'dying out' 4 February 2008 - BBC UK - Campaigners in Australia have warned that indigenous languages are declining at record levels. |
| Aboriginal archive offers new DRM 29 January 2008 - BBC UK - A new method of digital rights management (DRM) which relies on a user's profile has been pioneered by Aboriginal Australians. |
| Musical journey to Aboriginal heart 31 December 2007 - Who would have thought conservative historian Geoffrey Blainey would inadvertently provide the name for a music group? Calling yourselves the Black Arm Band is wryly subversive, given its members are mostly indigenous singers, songwriters and performers. |
| Aboriginal dancers shoot to internet fame with 'Zorba' 29 December 2007 - The Independent UK - A quirky dance routine to the music of Zorba the Greek has earned a group of young Aborigines worldwide fame on the internet as well as invitations to perform around Australia, and also to visit Greece. |
| Aboriginal Languages Slowly Making Way into Australian Schools 4 December 2007 - Voice of America - On the eve of European settlement in Australia, around 250 indigenous languages were spoken. |
| Climate heat on indigenous: study 26 November 2007 - Australia's northern Aboriginal communities will bear the brunt of climate change, with increases in water-borne diseases and loss of traditional food sources, an international report says. |
| Open letter to the Honorable Emperor of Japan November 2007 - We are an Australian Aboriginal Tribal Group, the Woppaburra People, of the Keppel Islands, Great Barrier Reef, of Central Queensland, Australia. The Keppel Islands are the ancestral homelands of our ancestors/forefathers, who were the original aboriginal inhabitants (custodians) of the Keppel Islands. |
| Aboriginal Lit 18 November 2007 - The New York Times - When “Carpentaria,” Alexis Wright’s epic novel about Aboriginal life, appeared last year, readers in Australia were slow to warm to its magisterial yet colloquial voice, which transformed the oral tradition of the country’s indigenous people into a swirling narrative spiked with burlesque humor and featuring a huge cast of eccentric characters. |
| Australia's First Aboriginal Record Label Opens in Sydney 7 November 2007 - Australia's first urban Aboriginal record label has been established in Sydney. Its founders say there is a great untapped market for Aboriginal hip-hop and rap music that deals with drugs, violence, poor health and racism. Phil Mercer reports from Sydney, where Redfern Records has released its first album, Beats from Tha (sic) Streets. |
| Aboriginal photographer takes on Paris 1 November 2007 - Tracking ancient stone etchings, healing gardens, or landmarks tracing the paths of Aboriginal songlines, an Australian Indigenous photographer brings the lost history of his people to the debut edition of a groundbreaking Paris art show. |
| Inspired by a journey, and still troubled times 24 October 2007 - Archie Roach never planned the release of his new album to coincide with a federal election. |
| Strong and proud: calendar celebrates Aboriginal beauty 24 October 2007 - The Independent UK - The beauty of Aboriginal women is celebrated in a calendar launched this week – but it is expected to elicit more interest overseas than in Australia. |
| The battle for Cape York 16 October 2007 - The independent UK - They call Cape York one of the last great wild places on Earth – a huge swathe of land at the north-east tip of Australia, featuring wetlands, tropical rainforests, savannah grasslands and bone-white sand dunes, all in a rare state of health and abundance. It is the kind of place that environmentalists swoon over, and dream of locking up for posterity. |
| How 'bush tucker' became flavour of the month for foodies 29 September 2007 - The Independent UK - As Aboriginal people have done for perhaps 60,000 years, Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr Bauman catches long-necked turtles by hand in the billabongs of the Daly river. |
| Bush medicine to treat farm crops 27 September 2007 - NT research could lead to Aboriginal bush medicine being used to combat disease in agricultural crops. |
| Settlers' history rewritten: go back 30,000 years 15 September 2007 - A CACHE of charcoal, stone tools and artefacts unearthed to make way for a high-rise apartment block has been found to be 30,000 years old, more than doubling the accepted age of Aboriginal settlement in Sydney. |
| Aboriginal author takes home Queensland Premier's award 12 September 2007 - Aboriginal author Alexis Wright may have to invest in a new award cabinet soon. |
A journey of hope
|
| A journey of discovery - in black and white 21 August 2007 - The actor Pete Postlethwaite has lent his very English accent to a documentary dealing with a very Australian theme. |
| Past imperfect 18 August 2007 - The Guardian (UK) - Over tea on the 15th floor of a London hotel, Kate Grenville tells a story about driving into the bush with a group of Aboriginal women. When they arrived the women sank to their knees and began digging for witchetty grubs with small, sharpened crowbars. Grenville did her best to copy but couldn't find any grubs, and when she asked what she was doing wrong they didn't help her. |
| How did $100,000 in NT mining royalties end up in Mal Brough's Queensland electorate? 12 July 2007 - NIT - Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Mal Brough took $100,000 from a government-controlled bank account that holds mining royalties on behalf of Northern Territory traditional owners and gave it to the organisers of a festival in his own Queensland electorate of Longman. |
| UQ embraces Indigenous Knowledge 14 June 2007 - The University of Queensland is recognising the importance of Indigenous Knowledge by developing an education policy that will improve the understanding of students and staff of Australian Indigenous issues. |
| Tall tales celebrate an ancient and dignified culture 8 June 2007 - Barking and Dagenham Post UK - 'A story like you've never heard before" is promised to us by the unseen narrator at the start of the film and I think he safely delivers on that bold claim, mostly because it's less a story rather a series of playful digressions. |
| Aboriginal Romeo and Juliet survive 40 years in the bush 8 May 2007 - The Independent UK - They were an Aboriginal Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers who eloped into the desert because tribal law forbade them from marrying. And for 40 years they roamed, living off kangaroo meat and bush fruit, happy with their own company and the red landscape. |
| Bible translated for Aborigines 7 May 2007 - BBC UK - The Bible has been translated into an Australian Aboriginal language for the first time. |
| Australia's own Mount Olympus 21 April 2007 - A rock platform in the heart of the Wollemi wilderness may be the closest thing Australia has to Mount Olympus, the "seat of the gods" of Greek mythology. |
| Israeli teaching methods key to future for at-risk kids 2 March 2007 - When Mark Leibler walked into Gowie Street Primary School last week as part of a visit of stakeholders in the Yachad Accelerated Learning Program (YALP) to schools in northern Victoria, the first thing that struck him was a massive display about Israel on one of the classroom walls. |
| Rugby league lifting aboriginal kids in the bush 19 February 2007 - The fledgling competition promises to be one that will be second to none anywhere in Australia. |
| Australian meals on wheels goes native 11 February 2007 - Fancy a spiny anteater casserole for lunch, or perhaps a spit-roasted lizard with a couple of juicy grubs on the side? |
| How a movie about egg-gathering and Aborigines manages to tell a much bigger story 29 January 2007 - (The Guardian UK) - Even as recently as 20 years ago, the suggestion that the power that drives Australian culture is Aboriginal would have struck most people as extreme. Then there were the Sydney Olympics, and more and more tourists did the Outback pilgrimage and were regaled with various encapsulated versions of Aboriginal culture; they bought their dot paintings in the store-front galleries in Alice Springs and went back to suburbia in America, Europe, Asia and Australia none the wiser for the experience. |
| Native peace symbol marks nation's day 27 January 2007 - A GIANT re-creation of an Aboriginal artwork in a sheep paddock in Western Australia was the visual highlight of yesterday's Australia Day celebrations. |
| Oscar hopes dashed for 'ten canoes' 17 January 2007 - Australia's first Aboriginal-language film, Ten Canoes, has missed out on a chance at an Oscar nomination for best foreign film. |
| Aboriginal models forced to look overseas 10 January 2007 - THE beauty of Aboriginal women may be the "essence of Australia - strong, proud and unique" - but few people in this country appreciate it. |
| Aboriginal film dominates awards 11 December 2006 - (BBC UK) - Australia's first Aboriginal language movie has dominated the country's top cinema awards. |
| Australia
picks Aboriginal film for Oscar nod 5 October 2006 - The first Australian film to be shot in an indigenous language, "Ten Canoes," will be Australia's entry for the 2007 Academy Awards in the foreign-language category. |
| Stand by your
land 26 August 2006 - Two years ago, Kerrianne Cox felt the pull of home in her veins: a cherished aunt was dying, the ochre countryside was calling and the grandfather who had groomed her as a future leader kept asking: "When's that girl coming back?" |
| From St Pauls
to Paris for dance team 7 August 2006 - Members from the Arpaka Dance Company at St Pauls Village started an exciting journey to introduce their culture in another country. |
| Scientist gives his award to Aboriginal 24 July 2006 - (The Journal of Turkish Weekly) - Anger about government inflexibility and inaction on Aboriginal training programs has prompted a leading ANU scientist to donate a $30,000 national environmental prize to pay for an indigenous trainee fire ecologist at Jervis Bay to continue his education. |
| One Million
Canoes - Australian cinema audiences flock to Aboriginal morality tale 14 July 2006 -After only two weeks in cinemas, Ten Canoes, the film by Rolf de Heer and the people of Ramingining, has taken over one million dollars at the Australian box office, it was announced by Palace Films today. |
| Respect
the past - believe in the future 4 July 2006 - NAIDOC Week celebrations will be held around Australia in the coming week to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. |
| Aboriginal mythology debuts on silver
screen 2 July 2006 - (Mail & Guardian online SA) - The subject matter was untested, the actors almost naked and the whole movie was to be made in a language spoken by only a tiny group of people -- but to film executive Brian Rosen, funding Australia's latest international film success, Ten Canoes, was a "no-brainer". |
| The bounders of Botany Bay 25 June 2006 - (The Sunday Times UK) - IT'S NOT SURPRISING that Australia's master yarn spinner, Tom Keneally, should turn his attention to one of the greatest European imperial adventures of the eighteenth century, the settlement of Botany Bay and the appropriation for the British crown of the great southern continent Terra Australis, today Australia. |
| Aboriginal
Groups shimmer together 15 June 2006 - (Georgia Straight Canada) - For the past six years, Toronto’s Red Sky has been pushing the boundaries of aboriginal performance—not just artistically, but geographically. Dig the Didge |
| Dreamtime
in the druids' domain 2 June 2006 - NORMALLY at this time of year, as the summer solstice approaches, the ancient stone circle of Stonehenge is populated largely by mystics, meditators, hippies and people with slightly out-of-tune acoustic guitars. |
| Australian
art demonstrates strength of aboriginal culture 31 May 2006 - (Salisbury Journal UK) - INDIGENOUS Australian art is currently being exhibited at Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum, as part of Salisbury International Arts Festival's aboriginal showcase. |
| Page 8, Tron,
Glasgow 30 May 2006 - (The Herald: UK) - NINE years ago, the Page boys – David, Stephen and Russell – were responsible for one of the most mystical, magical, captivating dance pieces ever to appear at the Edinburgh International Festival. Called Fish, it introduced Bangarra (Dance Theatre)– and a profound vision of Australia's Aboriginal culture. |
| Aussie
Low Budget Film Wins Cannes Special Jury Prize 28 May 2006 - A low-budget Australian film has been awarded the Special Jury Prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival. |
| Dream
team assembled for footy's Dreamtime at the 'G 4 May 2006 - MICHAEL Long has just about done it all when it comes to the MCG. Twice he received premiership medals, once he was judged the best player in a grand final and many times he stood up against racism in sport and enthralled the crowd with his speed and skill. |
| Flames
of anger at 'Stolenwealth Games' 14 March 2006 - New Zealand Herald (NZ) - Smoke from the sacred fire where the Rainbow Serpent lives drifts across Melbourne's Kings Domain as fire-keeper Robert Corowa welcomes visitors to Camp Sovereignty, the centre for two weeks of protest against the "Stolenwealth Games". |
| Tradition
wrapped up in cloaks of possum 13 March 2006 - The skill of making possum-skin cloaks disappeared from Victoria about 150 years ago, leaving behind only a few specimens in museums around the world.That all changed seven years ago when three women on a printmaking course were shown the Aboriginal collection at the Melbourne Museum, which has two cloaks from the 19th century. |
| culture and identity: news index (return to eniar.org) |