The Dupang Festival in South Australia brings together local, interstate and international Indigenous dancers for three days of performance and workshops at a spectacular waterfront site on the Coorong.
Presented by Tal-Kin-Jeri Dance Group on Ngarrindjeri land at Long Point near Meningie, this camping festival will provide an immersive cultural experience for anyone interested in Aboriginal culture.
Tal-Kin-Jeri Director, Major ‘Moogy’ Sumner AM, says the festival is about sharing culture and healing the spirit. “We’ve been living by these waters along the Coorong and back up through the Riverlands for thousands of years. We know this country, we know its spirit and every time we perform a ceremony we wake that spirit up and it heals us,” he says.
Dancers from the APY Lands, western Victoria and northern NSW will join with dancers from South Africa and New Zealand in a celebration of traditional dance. “We want people to come and join in with us,” Major Sumner says. “We’ll have workshops during the day to teach people our stories and our dances, and then at night we’ll all come together for a big corrobboree where everybody can get on the dance ground and participate,” he says.
People attending will be able to sample gourmet Indigenous food from the local area including Coorong Mullet, Goolwa cockles and Gelato made from Muntries, a highly nutritious berry that grows wild around the shores of the Coorong. Bush tucker tours to the nearby Bonny Reserve will be on offer as well as trips across to the giant dunes on the ocean side of the Coorong, to collect cockles and on the shores of Lake Alexandrina.
