STORIES OF WATER AND EARTH: PROGRAM NOTES

 

Stories of Water and Earth is an oral representation of Melanie Munuggurr’s life experience and connection to water, earth, and sky. It is her knowledge interweaved with dreams of her peoples’ past, present and future. She imagines a way of life and reimagine the way life was, and is before colonisation, when her people were at one with the trees, oceans, and stars. This beautiful collaboration with Netanela Mizrahi is her journey, from the first sunrise to loving and yearning and returning home for the last breath. Netanela’s music gives Melanie’s words special life and meaning.

Freshwater Woman is both a story and a musical journey, weaving the songlines of Nardi Simpson’s matriarchal homelands of Yuwaalaraay Country in outback Australia with her original music. Performed by Nardi Simpson and Ensemble Offspring, Freshwater Woman is an interactive concert evoking dreaming stories, traditional songs, original compositions and uplifting images of country, sharing the practises of Yuwaalaraay women’s creative and cultural practice in an immersive environment.