Cirrus@Austlit

'What is a queer black drag aesthetic? Who are the architects of this work? How do you go about producing or curating an event that celebrates queer black drag culture? These are questions that emerged when, quite by accident, independent producer Harley Stumm (Intimate Spectacle) approached me as a then Co-Artistic Director of Moogahlin Performing Arts, inviting the company to curate an event for the Near and Now Festival at 107 Projects in Redfern. The time slot offered was 24-25 February 2017, right in the middle of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival season. After extensive consultation with members of the Moogahlin artistic leadership, and with various black LGBTQI+ community members, it became clear that there was a need for and interest in initiating a queer black arts programme to be presented in Redfern on Gadigal land, an area that historically has been known as a gathering space for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from across the country. As the lead creative, I never intended to view the project as research. However, this special issue has provided the opportunity to reflect on the process of creating and producing a queer black event, and subsequent events, and to contribute to the discourse on Indigenous queer performance in Australia. This article is therefore assembled from my memories and experiences, though partial, of curating four annual events known as Koori Gras. In framing this discussion, I am informed by the writings of Gayatri Gopinath, specifically in relation to the idea of curation as a practice of 'care', and extend this notion to also include the concept of 'kin' when investigating Indigenous queer curation and a black drag aesthetic in Australia. I am similarly influenced by the critical writings of Indigenous scholars such as Sandy O'Sullivan and Nat Woodall in consideration of the social, cultural and political aspirations of black drag performers in Australia. In addition, I include a timeline of Koori Gras and list the key creative personnel and performers who contributed to the overall success of the many programmes that Koori Gras platformed. This documentation is constructed from materials sourced from project production schedules and contact lists from Moogahlin company archives.' (Publication abstract) 

'This transnational and transcultural study intimately investigates the theatre making practices of Indigenous women playwrights from Australia, Aotearoa, and Turtle Island. It offers a new perspective in Performance Studies employing an Indigenous standpoint, specifically an Indigenous woman's standpoint to privilege the practices and knowledges of Maori, First Nations, and Aboriginal women playwrights.

'Written in the style of ethnographic narrative the author affords the reader a ringside seat in providing personal insights on the process of negotiating access to rehearsals in each specific cultural context, detailed descriptions of each rehearsal location, and describing the visceral experiences of observing Indigenous theatre makers from inside the rehearsal room.

'The Indigenous scholar and theatre maker draws on Rehearsal Studies as an approach to documenting the day-to-day working practices of Indigenous theatre makers and considers an Indigenous Standpoint as a valid framework for investigating contemporary Indigenous theatre practices in a colonised context.' (Publication summary)

'Dingo (Sandy Greenwood, a Gumbaynggirr, Dunghutti and Bundjalung actor) stands facing the audience, dressed in a muddied tracksuit with a dingo-like mask. Her opening speech signals concern; a longing for her lost pups.' (Introduction)

'This article considers an international model of cultural arts exchange developed by Aboriginal, Māori and First Nations theatre-makers, and examines the process of negotiation, articulation and translation of cultural differences in the process of rehearsing new Aboriginal work. I would like to thank all the theatre-makers who are involved in this ground-breaking initiative and I credit all in the body of the article.' (Publication abstract)

'A major consideration in touring a First Nations performing arts production is how to engage with local indigenous communities on whose country someone else’s story is being told. Engagement strategies have often failed due to a systemic lack of direct consultation with and participation by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the development of community engagement programmes and activities.

'Through a case study of the Indigenous Community Engagement initiative implemented by Performing Lines, an Australian producing and touring organisation, the concept of community engagement for touring on country is reimagined as one based on a responsive rather than a prescriptive approach, and on self-determined and Indigenous-led frameworks. The case study highlights the cultural responsibilities and challenges of presenting First Nations performance on country, the key considerations around connecting and engaging with local Indigenous communities, and the need to build awareness, protocols and culturally safe spaces with performing arts centres.

'The only one of its kind in the performing arts in Australia, this initiative showcases the potential to revolutionise the way in which engagement with Indigenous communities is delivered across the performing arts sector as a whole.'  (Publication abstract)

'Balmain is traditionally an industrial Sydney suburb. Before Cook, Gadigal and Wangal people lived on the bush landscape now known as Peacock Point. My great-grandfather Daniel Syron moved to Balmain in the 1920s after the First World War to find work on the wharves. He is a Birripi man from Cape Hawke on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. I have no memory of ever meeting him. I have seen photos of him stuck in an old photo album held together by broken silver corners. He was a tall man, black and handsome. All the Syron men are. He was a light horseman and a returned soldier.  Although Aboriginal people weren’t allowed to enlist in the Australian army at the time, he must have slipped through. Daniel met his wife, Elizabeth Murray, an English migrant from Manchester, on his return from service. Elizabeth was a tough cookie having survived working down coalmines as a child. She thought Dan was your typical bronzed Aussie. Together they had eight children. Their firstborn is my grandmother, Catherine Mary Syron. Cathy’s eldest son, Frederick George, is my father. He was also born in Balmain, as was I and my two younger sisters. My mother came from the now well-to-do eastern suburb of Waverly and her family heritage includes the First Fleet Irish convict Henry Kable. However I didn’t know all this about my Aboriginal history when I was growing up.’  (Introduction)