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Jason De Santis is a playwright and actor from Milikapiti, Northern Territory, belonging to the Tiwi people. De Santis's play Walamanyuwi and the Seven Pamanui (which draws from both Tiwi and Western culture) is set to be performed in 2011.
'A new Aboriginal play with songs and puppetry. Using the language and rhyme of the Tiwi Islands, north of Darwin, Wulamanayuwi tells the story of a young girl and her experiences with the spirit-beings of a mystical, dreamtime land.
In the tradition of the Grimms Brothers tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Wulamanayuwi, daughter of the Rainbow Serpent totem, runs away from her evil stepmother into a land of water spirits, dingoes, wallabies and frogs. Guided by a white cockatoo, Wulamanayuwi meets the seven Pamanui (spirit-beings) who, in a quest to seek revenge and justice, will lead her back home via a path of myth and magic, disaster and adventure.
Told through story and song and narrated by Jarparra, the Moon Man, this new play mixes the enchanting tradition of European fairytales with the Palaneri or Dreaming characters and stories of the Tiwi Islands.' Source: www.cyberpaddock.com.au/ (Sighted 18/04/2011).