As part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival (it's nonstop festivals in this town) I went last night to a performance called "Ngapartji ngapartji" (I give you something, you give me something). It's a multimedia storytelling of the experience of Aboriginals from the "Spinifex mob," whose land in the southwest of Australia was used by Britain for nuclear weapons tests, resulting in cancer for many and rootlessness for all. The narrator, Trevor Jamieson, told it through his family's trail of sorrows, and he was accompanied by a choir of old women, a Japanese butoh dancer, an Afghan refugee girl (the first foreigner Jamieson's ancestors met was an Afghan, brought in by the British to tame the desert) - and a language teacher.
We were taught to sing in the Pitjantjatara language:
Tjamu, kami
Mama, ngunytju
Kuta, kangkuru, kulali-ya
Ngangatja tjukurpa nyuntumpa ngalimpa
Nyaakun kulira wantinyi nyangatja?
Grandpa, grandma
Father, mother
Brother, sister, listen all of you
This story is yours, ours
Why have you stopped listening to this one?
The performance is part of a larger project which includes internet instruction in Pitjantjatara, "the oldest language in the world." (http://ninti.ngapartji.org/) There's a group of learners just down Lygon Street... I'm signing up!
