Performing Indigenous Identities on the Contemporary Australian Stage

Land, People, Culture

Susanne Thurow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000682182
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre History & Criticism

Over the past 50 years, Indigenous Australian theatre practice has emerged as a dynamic site for the discursive reflection of culture and tradition as well as colonial legacies, leveraging the power of storytelling to create and advocate contemporary fluid conceptions of Indigeneity.

Performing Indigenous Identities on the Contemporary Australian Stage offers a window into the history and diversity of this vigorous practice. It introduces the reader to cornerstones of Indigenous Australian cultural frameworks and on this backdrop discusses a wealth of plays in light of their responses to contemporary Australian identity politics. The in-depth readings of two landmark theatre productions, Scott Rankin's Namatjira (2010) and Wesley Enoch & Anita Heiss' I Am Eora (2012), trace the artists' engagement with questions of community consolidation and national reconciliation, carefully considering the implications of their propositions for identity work arising from the translation of traditional ontologies into contemporary orientations. The analyses of the dramatic texts are incrementally enriched by a dense reflection of the production and reception contexts of the plays, providing an expanded framework for the critical consideration of contemporary postcolonial theatre practice that allows for a well-founded appreciation of the strengths yet also pointing to the limitations of current representative approaches on the Australian mainstage. This study will be of great interest to students and scholars of Postcolonial, Literary, Performance and Theatre Studies.

1 Cultural and historical context

The following chapter outlines some of the historical context that continues to impact on cultural relations in Australia to this day. Contemporary Indigenous Australian and intercultural theatre, in part an offspring form of political protest and social justice movements, intricately engages with this history by promoting Indigenous historiographies. It gives room to and creates avenues to reflect on Indigenous experiences within the larger Australian space, modelling identities that allow for new visions of the country’s past, present and future.

Cultural relations in Australia

The historiography concerning cultural relations in Australia has especially over the past 30 years become a highly contested, polarising discourse that continues to hold a very prominent position in the Australian public domain. As an interdiscourse, the theatre practice discussed in this book taps deeply into these ongoing discussions (Link & Link-Heer 1990, p.97). It makes express reference to events of the national past and centres on their repercussions for individuals and communities in the present. Familiarity with cornerstones of the history of cultural relations in Australia enables a deeper appreciation of this dimension of contemporary Indigenous Australian theatre practice and the identity work developed therein. Naturally, the portrayal of the historical context here is limited in its scope and depth. Readers interested in more comprehensive representations of Australian history may want to refer to the work of historians like Paul Carter (1987) for more extensive discussions of the historical and political context surrounding cultural relations in Australia.

Engagement with the past links concepts of nationhood and national identity to questions of accountability and ethics. Under colonial rule, Australian historiography has been characterised by a strong tendency to ameliorate the colonisation of the continent and to forge a sense of belonging for the young nation by way of promoting national unity and fraternity of British description, leaving out other (e.g. Indigenous) experiences of living on Australian land (Attwood 2005, pp.1/4). The anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner in turn coined the phrase ‘the Great Australian Silence’ to refer to the lack of reflection of what the settling of the land has meant for the Indigenous population (1991, p.25). Their image, if at all present, was functionalised in the national narrative to heighten a notion of White moral supremacy and Western forms of civilisation (Anderson 2003, p.45). Stanner pointed out that the dispossession and continued marginalisation of Indigenous Australian people, however, have continuously disrupted the national narrative and need to be addressed in order to build a strong foundation for an Australian national identity (1991, pp.27–29). This claim is confirmed by the continuous resurgence of “reconciliation” as a prime topic in contemporary Australian public debates. As a process that cannot fall back on ready-made templates, reconciliation is now being defined through negotiations between multiple interest groups and stakeholders who advocate for very different concepts and visions of what was and what is to be intended and achieved (e.g. Liddle 2014; Pearson 1999; Windschuttle 2000).

The conceptualisation of the categories “Indigenous” and “Settler Australian” are powerful instruments in this discourse because they function as tools for inclusion or exclusion of certain people, which can either increase or diminish Indigenous political agency. As Michael Dodson (Yawuru) outlines, Indigenous Australian identity has always been subject to changing definitions, which are intimately linked to their historical context and to the intentions of the people who have used them (2003, pp.32/33) – be it the definitions employed by Indigenous communities themselves to determine who is eligible to claim belonging, those by successive governments to justify policies and treatment of Indigenous people, or those drawn on by critics to assess Indigenous arts practice. The power to define, however, has not been equally distributed: Over the past 230+ years, Settler Australian stakeholders have been invested with substantial power to distribute ideas about Indigenous Australian identity on national as well as international platforms. Their definitions and ideas significantly shaped cultural relations on the continent, contributing to the creation of stereotypes and prejudices among the Australian population that continue to pervade much of the lived realities and discourse surrounding Indigenous Affairs today. Images that have been circulated range from the dark-skinned, half-naked noble savage and primeval child of humanity (ibid., pp.34/36) to the stigmatisation of Indigenous Australian people as passive or violent drunkards living on the outskirts of urban centres (Anderson 2003, p.49; Sumner qtd. in Maddox 2018), among other misleading, homogenising and essentialising narratives. In tandem with a range of severe regulatory structures imposed on the Indigenous population throughout colonisation, those popular representations have had a devastating impact on self-images among many Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and, in a self-reinforcing cycle, have worked to undermine pride in Indigenous heritage (ibid., pp.49–51). As a result of colonisation, a lot of Indigenous cultural capital has been lost over the years, with ritualistic practices discontinued, many Indigenous languages extinct or critically endangered (Walsh 2005, p.2) and many cultural artefacts scattered across the globe (Langton 2003a, p.81). Contemporary Indigenous arts practice works in and against this context, aiming to recuperate, reinvigorate and develop cultural resources. It provides a platform to Indigenous voices that co-articulate heritage, contemporary experience and visions for a better future (Casey 2012, p.7). The arts are used as an empowering tool that can boost self-esteem and engagement as well as initiate interaction among different groups in a space that is both political but due to its communicative structures also to a degree sheltered from the forceful debates in the public sphere. In the arts as well as in other sectors, multiple images of Indigenous identity and Indigenous voices have been emerging which open up the former homogenising narratives. As Marcia Langton (Wiradjuri, Bidjara) points out, “the creation of ‘Aboriginality’¹ is not a fixed thing, it is created from our histories. It arises from the intersubjectivity of black and white in a dialogue” (2003b, p.118) – emphasising the shared production of knowledge in the public sphere. Langton and others stress that it is of utmost importance in this intercultural process that the heterogeneity of Indigenous Australia is foregrounded and that essentialising definitions are abandoned in favour of flexible notions that remain conscious of the dynamic social fabrication of identities (e.g. Langton 2003b, p.116; Casey 2005, pp.204/05; Paradies 2006, pp.361–63). A strong concern voiced by many Indigenous people in light of measures designed to open the discourse on national identity to more inclusion and heterogeneity is that such endeavours may not be actual indicators of an earnest engagement with reconciliation but instead only manifest a temporary stage in a neo-colonial discourse formation that eventually will curtail Indigenous participation and agency once again (i.e. merely allowing for a symbolical but essentially tokenistic inclusion). Apprehension is expressed that the emerging self-representations of Indigenous people will again be utilised in a fossilising manner to invest only a certain definition of Aboriginality with legitimacy (Dodson 2003, pp.39/40). With this concern in mind, the strong focus on identity in most Indigenously-led discourse can be read as an active antidote to such tendencies. It marks a shift in power relations as Indigenous people increasingly create, promote and regulate the market of their representations in the mainstream public sphere – effectively creating a counterweight to the dominant historiographic frames.

Indigenous Australian ontologies and cultural practice

Historians estimate that Aboriginal people have lived on the Australian mainland for over 65,000 years – making Aboriginal Australian cultures the longest continuing cultures in the world (Clarkson et al. 2017, p.306). The peoples indigenous to the Torres Strait Islands in the far North of the continent are of Melanesian descent and are believed to have settled there for centuries before British colonisation (Bourke 1998, p.175). Their cultures are distinct from mainland ones and bear commonalities with Papuan and South-East Asian as well as Australian Aboriginal cultures. Because of those differences, the two groups are commonly referred to separately. With regard to the terminology used in this study, “Indigenous Australian” is used as a cover term for both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, while “Indigenous” is used when an international context is entailed. I opt to use the term “Indigenous” rather than “First Nation People” or “Blackfella” because in my interpretation “Indigenous” seems the most open term, whereas the other two, even though politically more feasible and used by Indigenous people for self-reference (Pascoe 2008, p.6), highlight particular aspects of discourses surrounding political issues in Australia (e.g. land rights) that in their particularised focus feel too limiting to leverage the broader scope needed for this study.

Before the arrival of the first European settlers in 1788, about 250 different nations existed on the continent (Walsh 2005, p.1). The adoption of the concept of “nation” here may be read as a reflection of the cross-cultural negotiation of Indigenous rights under the state of colonisation, seeking to achieve recognition of sovereignty by articulating Indigenous identity within available political frameworks. Pre-colonial Indigenous identifications have been structured in culturally distinctive ways and under colonialism have been translated (with the attendant loss and distortion of particularity) into Western concepts in order to gain political traction in the fight for land rights and recognition of sovereignty. Scholars and activists like Irene Watson (Tanganekald, Meintangk Boandik) problematise such a formulation and negotiation of Indigenous causes in Western conceptual domains (e.g. 1997, pp.54ff – for further discussion see Chapter 4). Keeping these contextual connotations in mind, I will nevertheless deploy the term “nation” in this study for ease of signification.

Demographically, Australia’s pre-colonial Indigenous nations had been made up of approximately 600 to 1.500 people (Bonner 1997, p.1), who in turn lived in smaller sub-groups, with clans in more arid regions moving across their country in sync with the seasons, while those in fertile lands often led sedentary lives and practiced forms of agriculture (Pascoe 2014). Linguists estimate that Indigenous Australian people spoke approximately 250 distinct languages with many dialects differentiating those (Walsh 2005, p.1). Evidence can be found that, despite territorial division, communication was frequent between nations with people speaking several languages, often marrying outside their clans and maintaining cultural and economic links to neighbouring groups (Rumsey 1993, p.195). Trade and exchange with visitors from Asia and Europe were also common and speak against a falsely assumed seclusion, which has underpinned arguments that interpret cultural developments and adaptation since the onset of colonisation as progressive cultural disintegration of Indigenous Australian cultures (Pascoe 2008, p.6).

Over the course of millennia, Indigenous Australian peoples have adapted to their environment in intricate ways, surviving large-scale climate change and forging a distinctive relationship with the land (Cane 2002, p.157; Hamacher & Norris 2011, p.282). The history and nature of this relationship with the land are captured in stories of what came to be known in the English language as the “Dreaming”. The term was first coined by anthropologists as a translation from Indigenous words such as Western Aranda ‘Altyerrenge’ (Morton 2000, p.10) or Warlpiri ‘Jukurrpa’ (Wierzbicka & Goddard 2015, p.44), which integrate semantic features of Western concepts such as ‘dreaming’, ‘story’ and ‘law’ (Stanner qtd. in Morton 2000, p.10; Sometimes 2008, p.41). All these ideas are important for a translation of the underpinning concept: The Dreaming encapsulates an ontological framework that is based on a non-linear notion of time in which past, present and future are spliced (Hume 2002, p.38), prompting Stanner to offer the alternative term ‘everywhen’ to elucidate some of the ideas expressed in accounts of the Dreaming (2009, p.57): The past is not envisioned as something final and closed but as something live and pervasive (Hume 2002, p.27). The present is also assigned a different quality than in Western notions of time because it is conceived as firmly integrated with the course of the universe (Muecke qtd. in Swain 2010, p.61), which is conceptualised as a harmonious whole that is maintained through ritualistic practice in the present for the future to come (Rose, James & Watson 2003, p.3). The future is seen as guaranteed and provided for through an intricate kinship system that binds people into a close relationship with creation and in particular to designated areas of the land (Muecke qtd. in Swain 2010, p.61). People are invested with rights to and responsibilities for particular stretches of land – hence the law-semantics in concepts of the Dreaming (Morton 1992, pp.28/29; Swain 2010, pp.64/65). These duties are oriente...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Cultural and historical context
• 2 Contemporary Indigenous Australian theatre
• 3 Case study: Scott Rankin’s Namatjira (2010)
• 4 Case study: Wesley Enoch & Anita Heiss’ I Am Eora (2012)
• Conclusion
• Index