Listening to Country Symposium

At the culmination of the Listening to Country Lab Marrugeku presented a two-day forum hosted by Nulungu Indigenous Studies Research Institute at Notre Dame University, Broome. The forum included the presentation of the live performance results of the dance research and a series of keynotes and panels by artists and cultural leaders from the Kimberley and beyond. The symposium was attended by 150 local, national and international delegates.

The Listening to Country symposium presented the results of a series of dialogues with Indigenous cultural leaders, environmentalists, dancers, choreographers, new media artists and dramaturges from Kimberley, Sydney, Ouagadougou, Brussels and Guwhati, Assam. These locations we consider to be resonant pressure points around the world where the impacts of globalization and of contested nationhood deeply effect local communities and therefore the possibilities of dance and media arts as they emerge in each location.

Out of our ongoing performance research we have identified Listening to Country as a methodology which foregrounds feeling, responsibility and paying attention—to places, human and non-human species, weather, communities and histories. Listening to Country for us in Marrugeku has become a set of practices applied in the context of north western Australia in order to produce new dramaturgies. Its processes are led by a sensorial and choreopolitical response to the realities of the environment, its custodians, contemporary social worlds and the histories which have occurred there.

Listening to Country 1 speakers included Yawuru law man and cultural consultant to Marrugeku; Patrick Dodson, dramaturg Hildegard de Vuyst (Belgium), Marrugeku’s co-artistic directors Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain, choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly (Burkina Faso/France), Bunuba leader and co-creator of Jandamarra June Oscar, co-creators of Fire Fire Burning Bright: Mirawoong/Gija elder Peggy Patrick and director Andrish Saint-Clare and dancers from the Listening to Country research project.

Listening to Country 2 symposium was presented in July 2016 at Arts House in Melbourne as part of Performance Studies International 22nd conference: Performance Climates. Speakers included Charles Ahukaramu Royal, Helen Gilbert, Dalisa Pigram and Rachael Swain . Moderator David Pledger.