Ananguku Arts

Performing Arts

Ananguku Arts is a growing facilitator of the development and presentation of the unique traditional and contemporary performing art forms and performers of APY Lands. It is in the nature of an oral culture that it carries and transfers its knowledge in story-telling – both ceremonial and recreational – and the same story-telling that resides in contemporary visual arts practice continues through song, dance and music.

This project arose from a collaboration with Nganampa Health in 2004 that saw Ku Arts supporting a number of Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and professional jazz musicians work with young Anangu contemporary music performers in a special-purpose music camp at Ulkiya Homeland, near Amata. The collaboration or mentorship provided new skills in instrumentation, composition and musical arrangements, all shown on Nganampa Health’s music cd of the project, UPK4.

Several performers were identified for further development in that project, and one result has been the formation of a band – Nganampa Music – featuring the Amata-based songer/songwriter Mark Burton and his partner/collaborator Nadine Brady.

Ananguku Arts, with the assistance of the WOMADelaide Foundation, Arts SA and the kind donation of Maureen Ritchie, managed a development workshop in October 2006 for Nganampa Music, with Kev Carmody and Adelaide musician Dylan Woolcock as mentors.

The cd – Nganampa Music: Our Land, Our Story, Our Song – may be purchased by emailing
kuarts@internode.on.net

inma: ceremonial song & dance Anangu inma remains one of the most authentic expressions of Central/Western desert cultural practice and has featured large in Ku Arts projects, not only as a cultural presentation but also as an activity that engages young people in learning stories and the ceremony that is the most animated medium for their telling. Ku Arts has presented inma at the opening of the 2002 Adelaide Festival, WOMADelaide 2001 and 2003, the Tracking Kultjur Festival at the National Museum of Australia and various other events around Australia. A special project in 2003 saw an intensive workshop at Umuwa in the Lands (in which Elders worked with young people) focus on translating inma to indoor, orthodox theatrical performance so that the artform could be made more accessible to European audiences and thus provide more economic opportunity for the performers. The workshop was followed by very successful presentations in the Tandanya Theatre as part of the 2004 Adelaide Fringe Festival, and then in the Adelaide Festival Centre Dunstan Playhouse as the opening event of the 2004 Australia Council’s Australian Performing Arts Market.

Inma will be further developed in 2007 and 2008 as a commercial presentation for special-purpose tourism in the APY Lands.

Ananguku Arts is supported by: the South Australian Government through Arts SA; and the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body. Project support is also received from : The Department of Premier and Cabinet, Country Arts SA; and the Federal Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts. The Federal Department of Education. Employment and Workplace Relations