Context of the Key Forum
The Garma Festival of Traditional Culture
The annual Garma Festival is Australia's most significant Indigenous cultural exchange event, the venue for a leading forum on Indigenous issues, and an award-winning model for insightful Indigenous tourism.
Every year - 2005 was the seventh Garma - it has a range of regular entertainment, educational and cultural interaction features such as buŋguls; music training projects; workshops; an ecotourism program; a Yidaki master class; women's and men's programs; music concerts; a collaborative art project - the Garma Panel - and other art presentations; and the Key Forum (with a different theme each year), plus special features such as visits by international Indigenous cultural artists.
It is organised by the Yothu Yindi Foundation, a not-for-profit Aboriginal charitable organisation which, through Garma and its other programs:
- Develops economic opportunities for Yolŋu through education, training, employment, and enterprise and community development
- Facilitates the sharing of knowledge and culture, thereby fostering greater understanding between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians
- Provides contemporary environments and programs to encourage the practice, preservation and maintenance of traditional dance (buŋgul), song (manikay), art and ceremony.
The 2005 Garma five-day program included, as well as the Key Forum on 'Indigenous Cultural Livelihoods':
Buŋguls (Dance Ceremonies)
In these very significant, traditional ceremonies, men, women and children performed buŋguls (dances), with manikay (song) items, in costumes and miny'tji (art) drawn from their subjects. The buŋguls are a spectacular nightly (4.00pm to sunset) feature of Garma, with special dances and ceremonial exchanges often being presented by combinations of performers from various communities, and major prizes for the leading performances.
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| Buŋgul (Photograph by Mark Rogers) |
Macassan Performers - Special guests of the Yolŋu in 2005
For several centuries prior to contact with British colonists, the Yolŋu and other peoples of northern Australia enjoyed extensive economic and cultural relations with the crews of vessels from the Indonesian port of Makassar (Ujung Pandang). In 2005, those ties - still present in Yolŋu song, dance and design - were re-ignited by the special visit to Garma of a group of Macassan musicians and dancers, who performed at the buŋguls and collaborated with Yolŋu to create a special performance later presented at the Darwin Festival.
Ecotourism Program
This provides vital training for Yolŋu, and the chance for members of the general travelling public to attend Garma through a special ecotourism package. The 2005 ecotourism program, managed by World Expeditions, included special field excursions to different inland and coastal locations, and other special sessions of the Garma program. Experienced World Expeditions guides worked with a training facilitator from Charles Darwin University and Yolŋu participants in a guide education program developing skills in ecotourism to enable future management and operations of Yolŋu-owned tourism enterprises.
Yidaki (Didgeridu) Master Class
A daily Yidaki master class taught the skills of crafting and playing Yidaki. The master class students - men only - were instructed by acclaimed artists Djalu Gurruwiwi, a senior Galpu man and Milkayngu Mununggurr, a Djapu leader.
Goŋ-wapitja (Women's Cultural Practices)
In this program, conducted in a series of bough shelters, guests were instructed, and participated, in a series of craft, art and healing traditions, and also in the ancient law and historical stories associated with them. The activities included the preparation, dyeing and weaving of natural fibres to make baskets, mats, armbands, string and ceremonial items; painting of Nuku Dhulaŋ - bark paintings using traditional ochres painted with brushes made of human hair; and demonstrations of painting traditional public clan designs, and of woodcarving.
Men's Program
Off-site trips were organised to collect Gara (spear shafts), cut stringy bark, collect bush tucker and enjoy the stories and scenery along the track to Cape Arnhem. On-site activities included fish spear making, bark painting, making bilma (rhythm sticks) and guided bush walks. The four-day program culminated in a successful saltwater hunting trip.
Contemporary Music Training Program
Before and during Garma, the Yothu Yindi Foundation's Yirrnga Music Development Studio became a base for a number of young Yolŋu bands. Charles Darwin University managed a five-week Vocational and Technical Education (VET) Music course aimed at local musicians and songwriters and specifically targeted at recording original music and improving industry and performance skills and techniques. The NT School of Music at the Yirrkala Community Education Centre also presented a VTE program for school students. Bands performed lunchtime and evening concerts at Garma.
The Garma Panel Collaborative Art Project
In a unique collaborative art project, Indigenous artists from across Australia create the stunning Garma Panel, of up to eighty works of various forms: etchings, woodblock prints, and, in 2005, linocut prints. Limited edition prints are produced of each work, and a very small number of prints of the Garma Panel are created, also for sale. This year, artists were given the opportunity to cut and print a block, receiving accredited training in this art. Garma 2003 Panels, remaining 2003 etchings and 2004 woodcuts were available for sale at Garma 2005.
Employment and Training
Garma, and associated projects and programs leading up to it, also feature several employment and training programs for Yolŋu. In 2005, more than 130 Yolŋu were directly employed or trained at Garma. As well as the ecotourism and music training programs, there is a security training and employment program at and before Garma. Yolŋu were also employed in Garma operational roles, and across a range of the cultural and educational features of Garma, including in the women's and men's programs, Yidaki master class, the Key Forum, buŋgul and the Collaborative Art project.
Other Yothu Yindi Foundation Projects
All Garma attendance fees and other revenues received by the Foundation go to the operation of the Foundation's projects and programs, including Garma, to achieve the cultural, educational and economic outcomes outlined above. Other significant Yothu Yindi Foundation projects include:
The National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia (NRPIPA)
Arising from the 2002 Garma Symposium on Music and Performance, this project aims to systematically record and document the important and endangered traditions of Australian indigenous music and performance; to assist in the development of local - and accessible - archive or knowledge centres; and in the development of a national repository. A key element of the NRPIPA is the work with local Aboriginal communities to develop training programs for Indigenous men and women in the recording and documenting of traditions and management of recorded data. At Garma 2005, a major planning, research and development meeting took place for NRPIPA, as well as a series of pilot recordings of dance and music. The NRPIPA is an initiative of the Yothu Yindi Foundation in collaboration with the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, Charles Darwin University and other education, music and Indigenous organisations.
Cultural Induction Program - for Alcan G3 and Alcan Gove Pty Ltd
In 2005, the Yothu Yindi Foundation commenced a unique Cultural Induction Program for Alcan G3 (the construction workforce) and Alcan Gove Pty Ltd workers. The aim of the program is to give the workers a relevant, clear, practical and entertaining set of information in regard to Indigenous history, culture and social structure, and a clear set of practical advice in regard to communication, exchange, interaction, sensitivities, and access to Aboriginal land. Nine Yolŋu, including Mandawuy Yunupiŋu and several other community leaders, delivered the program. It has already proved highly successful, with practical, positive results. The Foundation plans to expand the delivery of the program, including adapting the Nhulunbuy program to make it suitable for other applications and regions, and is in discussion with several Government and corporate agencies and companies.