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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Production Details
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Staged at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne, 23-27 June 1951.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Performing Aboriginal Rights in 1951: From Australia's Top End to Southeast
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Australian Journal of Politics and History , June vol. 69 no. 2 2023; (p. 227-247)'In 1951, performers from Daly River and Tiwi Islands Aboriginal communities staged a corroboree strike. The musicians and dancers had routinely entertained visiting cruise ships in the Darwin Botanic Gardens, but now joined dockside workers to protest the jailing and exiling of two Aboriginal agitators Lawrence Wurrpen (Urban) and Fred (Nadpur) Waters. In Melbourne, the Australian Aborigines' League expressed solidarity with the Darwin strikes and protested the exclusion of Aboriginal voices from the Jubilee of Australian Federation. The League's leaders Doug Nicholls and Bill Onus produced a new work of musical theatre featuring east coast Aboriginal performers Fred Foster, Margaret Tucker, Georgia Lee, Harold Blair, and others in ‘Out of the Dark — An Aboriginal Moomba’. In this paper we examine political uses of performance in Australia's assimilation era, and show how Aboriginal agitators used music and dance to connect struggles for rights across Australia, and to keep cultural identity alive. In doing so we show how performance operated both as work and as assertion of cultural sovereignty.' (Introduction)
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An Aboriginal Moomba : Remaking History
1999
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Continuum : Journal of Media and Cultural Studies , vol. 13 no. 3 1999; (p. 345-357)
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An Aboriginal Moomba : Remaking History
1999
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Continuum : Journal of Media and Cultural Studies , vol. 13 no. 3 1999; (p. 345-357) -
Performing Aboriginal Rights in 1951: From Australia's Top End to Southeast
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Australian Journal of Politics and History , June vol. 69 no. 2 2023; (p. 227-247)'In 1951, performers from Daly River and Tiwi Islands Aboriginal communities staged a corroboree strike. The musicians and dancers had routinely entertained visiting cruise ships in the Darwin Botanic Gardens, but now joined dockside workers to protest the jailing and exiling of two Aboriginal agitators Lawrence Wurrpen (Urban) and Fred (Nadpur) Waters. In Melbourne, the Australian Aborigines' League expressed solidarity with the Darwin strikes and protested the exclusion of Aboriginal voices from the Jubilee of Australian Federation. The League's leaders Doug Nicholls and Bill Onus produced a new work of musical theatre featuring east coast Aboriginal performers Fred Foster, Margaret Tucker, Georgia Lee, Harold Blair, and others in ‘Out of the Dark — An Aboriginal Moomba’. In this paper we examine political uses of performance in Australia's assimilation era, and show how Aboriginal agitators used music and dance to connect struggles for rights across Australia, and to keep cultural identity alive. In doing so we show how performance operated both as work and as assertion of cultural sovereignty.' (Introduction)
