The National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia: year one in review

Abstract

The National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia was conceived at Gunyangara in Arnhem Land during the inaugural Indigenous Performance Symposium in August 2002. The symposium was funded by the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) and hosted by the Yothu Yindi Foundation (YYF) as part of the fourth Garma Festival of Traditional Culture. Indigenous communities have used recording technologies to circulate and support the inter-generational transmission of their performance traditions for several decades now. Many Indigenous performers now keep recordings of their forebears’ past performances and listen to them for inspiration before performing themselves. In recent years, community digital archives have been set up in various Australian Indigenous communities. Not only can recordings reinforce memory and facilitate the recovery of lost repertoire, they can also provide inspiration for creative extensions of tradition. This paper reports on the outcomes of pilot studies undertaken in 2005 to develop and trial appropriate procedures and methodologies, and establish infrastructure requirements for the project. Ultimately, the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia hopes to aid Indigenous communities in sustaining cultural survival by stimulating lifelong interest in performance traditions through its serial recording and documentation initiatives, and the collections that it will deposit in local repositories for perpetual community access.