2.5: A Journey towards Adolescence and an Aboriginal Dance Method

This project records my history as an Aboriginal dancer who trained both in Australia and the USA. The end result of this history is a new Aboriginal Dance Method, which seeks a synthesis with African American dance, and other contemporary dance forms. In describing This new form, is informed by Gamilaraay Language, culture, mammals, birds, reptiles, qualities, elements, moving, parts of the body, material culture, water, doing, places, times, and questions. The dance sequence will include contemporary techno music and theatre to synthesise and to explore this new dance typology via the use of 100 steps drawn from the Gamilaraay language. These 100 steps are the core creation of this Masters. Is it possible to synthesise into another essentially “Aboriginal Dance Method” modern European ballet, physical theatre, African American dance and both ancient and modern Aboriginal dance types? The urban Aborigine is often divorced, like myself, from traditional initiation ceremony and hence cultural rights of passage. Loss of ritual and ceremony coupled with racism and no safe place to exist in society, has generated a mark milestone of institutionalism or goal time as a mark of being a man. Traditional ceremonies are often replaced by jail time for young Aboriginal men. Is it possible to create a major dance form, which celebrates and acknowledges these rights, by reflecting on the politics of disproportional Aboriginal incarceration? Can this new dance form, described in my thesis in 100 steps, or compressed movements, add to the choices for young Aboriginal dancers who are seeking to transcend cultural turmoil and to heal its wounds? This paper addresses the history of Racial Prejudice in Australia of incarceration and its relationship to initiation and the rights of passage for Aboriginal males in incarceration. 92 % of all Aboriginal prisoners are males and Aboriginal people account for 25 % of Australia's prison population 14 times higher than that of non-Aboriginal people