| Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences School of Humanities History at Sydney   History on WednesdayListening to Australian-Oceanic histories: Indigenous performance cultures at Pacific Arts festivals since 1970 Wed, 21 August 2024 12:10 – 1:30 | Hybrid event Dr Amanda Harris (Sydney) and Nardi Simpson In the early 1970s, delegations of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performers travelled across the Pacific Ocean to cultural festivals in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Japan and Hong Kong. Exploring networks across the Asia-Pacific, these acts of performance were entangled in momentous shifts in Indigenous rights and new politics of representation. Bringing new mobilities of the post-referendum era into dialogue with old practices of cultural performance, these exchanges of performance both signalled a modern post-colonial era and a reaching back into what Damon Salesa (2014) has characterised as the “deep and resonant past”. In this presentation we move between historical and recent experiences of festivals of Pacific Arts. We collaboratively bring together first-person accounts of involvement in festivals of Pacific Arts and Culture and campaigns for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, with historical efforts by key cultural and political leaders such as Oodgeroo Noonuccal and George Winunguj to establish annual festivals of the Black Pacific. Moving between past and present, we contemplate how approaches to Oceanic histories that centre song, dance and story may offer methodological insights for Australian history. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Amanda Harris is a musicologist and cultural historian who works collaboratively to explore histories of musical encounter in Australia’s Oceanic location and colonial history. Amanda is an ARC Future Fellow at Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney and Director of the Sydney Unit of digital archive PARADISEC. Nardi Simpson is a Yuwaalaraay musician, composer, author and culture keeper from the freshwater floodplains of New South Wales. Nardi’s second novel ’the belburd’ will be released by Hachette Australia in October 2024. Hybrid Event: Places to attend in-person are limited, so please register as soon as possible to reserve your place. Vere Gordon Childe Centre F09, Level 4, Madsen Building. Zoom link: https://uni-sydney.zoom.us/j/5326450738?pwd=SVFveTNPeU8yZnB0UHRVMXlmaTFDZz09 Passcode: 423557Click here to register Did you get this email as a forward? Click here to join our mailing list  Keep in touchCopyright © 2021 The University of Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia Phone +61 2 9351 2222 ABN 15 211 513 464 CRICOS Number: 00026APlease add soh.events@sydney.edu.au to your address book or senders safe list to make sure you continue to see our emails in the future. |
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