The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Dr Christopher Sainsbury is an Australian Indigenous composer and performer, and a descendant of Australia's first settled Aboriginal people - the Dharug (also known as Eora) (Platform Papers 59)
'We join seven Aboriginal Elders in 1788 as they meet ‘The Visitors’.
;Imbued with Aboriginal customs, melody and humour from composer Christopher Sainsbury and libretto by original playwright and Muruwari woman, Jane Harrison, it tells the story of the early days of colonialism and its impacts on the First Peoples. Through metaphors of birds falling from the sky and changes to the weather, we watch as the Elders question how to respond to ‘the visitors’.'