The sounds and stories of the Kimberley Region come alive in the cross-cultural collaboration, The Narli Ensemble.
Developed by Tura New Music, the production is a celebration of Kimberley country and its people, in a richly varied sonic and visual experience.
The highly-acclaimed production features The Narli Ensemble (Nar-lee) in a close collaboration between high profile First Nation artists and some of the country's finest instrumentalists: Mark Atkins (didgeridoo virtuoso and singer) Stephen Pigram (guitar and vocals), violinist Erkki Veltheim, guitarist Stephen Magnusson, cellist Tristen Parr, percussionist Joe Talia and flautist Tos Mahoney.
Tos is also the Founder and Artistic Director of Tura New Music, and kindly answers some questions about the project ahead of The Narli Ensemble's November tour.
Described as 'a powerful cross-cultural celebration of Kimberley country and its people', what has it taken to develop Kimberley Echoes prior to The Narli Ensemble it is today?
Eighteen years of relationship building, community experiences and projects across the Kimberley. It's all of that which has allowed for the growth and development of our touring and residency programmes.
It’s the building of trust over time with both local individuals, organisations, communities and the many visiting artists involved in all those programmes that has allowed for an ever increasing number of projects of scale including Kimberley Echoes, The Wreck and Topography to be developed over many years and now to be shared around Australia and the world for, we hope, many years to come.
So Kimberley Echoes can't be taken out of context as a singular entity/ production – it is part of a multi-layered set of historical and current collaborations and outcomes that are continually evolving.
And the key ingredients to 'what it has taken' is the commitment to those long-term connections, to not assuming we know or understand but are open to being told what is, to not defining outcomes; but no matter what, keep facilitating the opportunities to collaborate and connect.
How did you personally come to foster your interest in the music and stories of the Kimberley region?
I was driven by two drivers. One was a general sense of obligation to learn more and more about the diversity of Aboriginal cultures in Australia per se and the other to see what connections there could be between Aboriginal traditional and contemporary music/ culture and the broad tradition of western art music.
In the '80s and '90s, though there had been some attempts of the latter, there was little precedent. Besides study and talking to as many people as possible about it all, someone who worked in remote communities gave me the best advice – just start doing SOMETHING!
So with fear of naivety, I did and started the remote touring programme in the early noughties. And that simply started an amazing journey of meetings, friendships, collaborations, connections, mis-connections, humbling embarrassments, an ocean of synchronicity, loss and unique moments of musical and sonic encounters.
What can audiences expect from the upcoming series of Kimberley Echoes concerts?
The intent is for audiences to experience through music and image what the Narli artists experience in being in the Kimberley, being on country, collaborating with community.
Obviously for Stephen Pigram and Gabriel Nodea that is their life. Though of course they don’t for a minute say they represent 'Kimberley culture' – there isn’t such a thing. There a 30 distinct language groups across that region that we now call the Kimberley.
So for the non-Kimberley artists and the Kimberley artists it is their responses to travelling through all those vastly different lands and cultures. Some of that is through songs and poetry of Stephen Pigram and Mark Atkins arranged by the ensemble and some by powerful instrumental works written by various project members.
In addition to Pigram and Atkins, Erkki Veltheim, Stephen Magnusson, Tristen Parr, Joe Talia and myself are among the ensemble. It covers a vast musical landscape juxtaposing style and genre to a least point to the complexity of experience across time, country and culture.
How do visual elements of the show complement the music and stories being performed?
We have been very conscious not to create either a travelogue nor geo-logue of vision. The images include paintings from art centres and artists with whom we have had connections with one way or the other over the years as well as treated landscape video by video artists, including Sabine Mazzela, pointing more to the experience rather than any literal representation of landscape.
Tell us about some of the special guests who will be joining you in different locations?
Guest artists include Gija Elder Gabriel Nodea (Warmun community) for Bendigo, Melbourne and Canberra music icon Bart Willoughby in Bendigo and Melbourne. Gabriel Nodea is a senior Gija songman, dancer, painter, storyteller with whom we have been working with since 2008.
Gabe is Chairman of Warmun Art Centre and a leading community advocate not only in Warmun but across the top end. It was actually when he took us on a story tour of Warmun using a painting of his of that country, that we followed the idea of his telling of that story to his painting (projected) all set to Narli music. It was an incredibly moving moment when that was performed at the Perth Concert Hall at the end of that tour.
In your time touring these productions around the country, what visceral impact have you seen them make on audiences?
The first answer is to say how I've repeatedly witnessed the two-way impact of touring Kimberley Echoes through the Kimberley. That I have witnessed the powerful impact on the artists that performing to Warmun community on the Gija Joonba ground followed by Gija Dancers and Songmen performing to us – this can not but transform how a visitor experiences/ thinks about the world.
AND equally community’s transfixment when for example the ensemble performs one of Erkki Veltheim’s works commissioned for the ensemble reflecting the Kimberley seasons (a piece which would fit into any hard-nosed new music concert or festival) not only transfixed but afterwards the high level of engagement with talk about the work and how it had effected them.
AND I can't talk about IMPACT without talking about the parallel schools programme: whether that’s the widest eyes, biggest smiles on an ocean of faces in the bigger centres or shaking excitement of someone's chance to play a didgeridoo or a cello.
A show about stories, what are some stories from the Kimberley region that have captured your imagination?
We don’t for a minute claim to 'represent' Kimberley culture; a notion that doesn’t exist anyway and don’t take or misappropriate stories from the many cultures therein.
The main story is that one of the artist's experience of being there, of living there and the effect that has had on them. In its own way Kimberley Echoes has, and is making, its own stories with and in the many communities which it has spent time in over the past five years.
The next two years sees the production heading overseas to tour Asia and Europe – what are some of your hopes and expectations for what you can achieve in these regions?
Its threefold. One is to give those audiences an experience of the process of Kimberley Echoes and a broader notion of Australian culture; one is to create new opportunities for Kimberley Echoes to evolve; and the other is to foster international collaborations especially across South East Asia. The latter is a priority of ours already started in the form of the Kimberley Indonesia Project.
You also perform as part of the ensemble; how has your time with Kimberley Echoes enhanced your life as a musician?
It’s a tricky question as for most of the past 32 years (of Tura) I’ve kept to a self-imposed policy of not programming myself into programme/ projects. But partly out of my passion for the projects and partly out of efficiency (these projects are very expensive), I have become increasingly involved as performer.
That process has been an incredible privilege not only to be collaborating and performing with all the artists in the Narli Ensemble and the many Kimberley artists we collaborate with, but as part of this incredible process across time, on such sacred ground and with and for such generous and open communities and people. I can't think of anything that would enhance an artist's life more.
What further development do you have in mind for Kimberley Echoes and The Narli Ensemble beyond the Asia and Europe tours?
The 'programme', the collaborations, the works are constantly evolving – it’s a process rather than a 'product'. I certainly hope that under the banner of this process more and new artists both from the Kimberley and elsewhere become involved in the two-way learning that happens.
That of course will be fed through our other community-based programmes in the Kimberley such as Gillian Howell’s Fitzroy Valley New Music Project. Our regional and remote programmes will be expanding in the next five years not only in the Kimberley but also in the Northern Territory and Pilbara. All these programmes cross-pollinate and no doubt we will see new outcomes in projects like Kimberley Echoes.
The Narli Ensemble 2019 Tour Dates
Wed 20 Nov - Darwin Entertainment CentreSat 23 Nov - Sydney Opera House Forecourt
Sun 24 Nov - Four Winds (Bermagui, NSW)
Mon 25 Nov - Wagga Wagga Civic Centre
Tue 26 Nov - Albury Entertainment Centre
Fri 29 Nov - Ulumbarra Theatre (Bendigo)
Sat 30 Nov - Melbourne Recital Centre
Tue 3 Dec - Canberra Theatre Centre
