Aboriginal dancers find a new stage

By Peter Kerr

JAKARTA (JP): Arriving in Jakarta this week wide-eyed on their first trip outside Australia were young members of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance group who will feature at JakArt 2001.

Looking out over the lush rice fields and fish ponds around Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, dancers from the Torres Strait islands north of Australia were reminded of home.

But those who grew up in Australia's desert communities also sensed a familiarity with the simple wooden houses, kampongs and children playing along the route into the city.

JakArt will be an enriching experience for the eight senior students from NAISDA College in Sydney. None have been to Indonesia before, and six have never traveled outside Australia.

As well as communicating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture to Indonesian audiences, the group hopes to learn aspects of Indonesian dance for use in its own choreography.

NAISDA, or the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association, has for 25 years been training young indigenous Australians in dance and performing arts.

One of its success stories has been the internationally renowned Bangarra Dance Company, while a NAISDA graduate choreographed the indigenous sections of last year's Olympic opening and closing ceremonies.

NAISDA general manager Robert Jackson, who is supervising the JakArt tour, said most indigenous Australians would have no such opportunities without the college.

They were simply not eligible to be accepted into, for example, the Australian Ballet School. "They just don't fit the criteria, and yet by the time they graduate they're qualified enough to be accepted into that," Jackson said.

This struggle for a place and recognition in Australia's white-dominated society was part of what the group hoped to convey to Indonesian audiences, he said.

Jackson, who has traveled previously to Sumatra and Bali, said there was a "degree of similarity" between the way Aborigines and Indonesians were both striving to maintain traditional cultures in the face of modern "progress".

"I think that what will happen is that the Indonesian people and the other visitors to the performances will appreciate what we are doing and what we are trying to achieve," he said.

Tourism and big events like the Olympics were an excellent showcase for indigenous viewpoints, Jackson said, and helped encourage acceptance within Australia's multicultural system.

"But really what happens when we come on smaller trips like this to overseas countries, ordinary people can get to understand what we're about as well.

"Too often a lot of the information (about Aborigines) is sanitized, I guess, in how it gets out to ordinary people.

"It's only by us coming to places like this ... that we're able to tell other people about what we're actually trying to do and how we're doing it -- how we're trying to maintain our culture against the advent of 'progress'."

Jackson said the group hoped to hold workshops in high schools and communities outside Jakarta, where the "kids" from NAISDA (aged in their early 20s) could also learn more about Indonesian culture.

"It would be fabulous if we could go back with the knowledge of a couple of Indonesian dances, not with any perfection, but to have an understanding of how the movements are made up," he said.

"You see, it all adds to the knowledge bank of the choreography, and this is one of the things we try to develop within the college.

NAISDA's tour here, which also brings principal dance teacher Paul Saliba and contemporary indigenous teacher Gary Lang, has been funded by the Australia-Indonesia Institute.

NAISDA will perform at the festival's opening ceremony at the National Museum on Thursday at 7 p.m.

It has three other scheduled shows: An outdoor performance at Panggung Terbuka Amerta in Bogor at 1 p.m. on Sunday, and workshops at the Institut Kesenian Jakarta, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday at 10 a.m., and at Namarina Studio in Kebayoran Baru, South Jakarta, on Wednesday at 5:30pm.

Four other Australian artists or groups are taking part in JakArt.

Mike Nock is a New Zealand-born jazz pianist and composer who has lived for many years in Sydney while also touring and recording extensively in the United States.

Nova Ensemble, from West Australia, is joining with members of Bandung-based Warogus for a series of performances, with well- known percussion specialist Ron Reeves being the common member of both groups.

Other Australian participants are Rachmadi Fiedorowicz, a painter and visual artist who uses sheets of glass as a medium, and solo guitarist Mira'nda.