Drama Log 2

Date: 29/07/10
What we did:

Today we had another theory lesson on the Aboriginal culture. We started the lesson by making an Acknowledgement of Country “I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land, the Darug people, and call on the Spirit Ancestors to walk with us today as we share and learn together.” Ms Webb expressed her disappointment at the Acknowledgement of Country made in assembly today - how there was a notion of shame attached in the order of the acknowledgement with the Indigenous people being preceded by the Queen.
Afterwards, Ms Webb continued discussing about the displacement of the Indigenous race and culture by white settlers. She talked about how the European settlers had forcibly snatched away the possession of sacred sites such as Uluru from the original custodians of the land, saying it was equivalent to strangers stamping across the graveyard of our own ancestors. This disturbing analogy really helped me feel the extent to which the non-Indigenous people have inflicted suffering upon the Indigenous race.
Afterwards, everyone received a booklet containing a collection of Indigenous literature, ranging from poems such as the Municipal Gum by Kath Walker, dreamtime stories to plays about the Stolen Generations. The booklet also included an outline of the drama assessment for term 3, which will be a 4-6min group performance appropriate to Aboriginal theatre, based on Indigenous literary works. Before embarking on these assessment tasks, Ms Webb emphasised that we must not distort the meanings of Indigenous literary works and that we must not make a mockery of the Indigenous culture in our performances. She also drew attention to the need to recognise Indigenous authors’ intellectual property rights, which are the rights that the creators/inventors of literary works are entitled to. Ms Webb underscored the fact that we have already forcibly displaced and inflicted incredible pain to the Indigenous people, the oldest living civilisation in the world, and we MUST NOT repeat this by stealing their literary works as well. She said that we needed to seek permission from the Indigenous elders prior to our performances. So I did some research on the net, in an attempt to find the contacts of Indigenous elders of the Darug tribe. I found a website dedicated to the Darug people: http://www.darug.org.au/, and I decided to write a small letter to the President of the Darug Tribal Aboriginal Corporation which read like this:

To the president of the Darug Tribal Aboriginal Corportation,
My name is Helen and I am a student of James Ruse Agricultural High School. I am currently studying drama as an elective, and for term 3 we have started a new unit of drama which focuses on Aboriginal Theatre. Our drama class recognises the importance of respecting the intellectual property rights pertaining to Indigenous literary works (which we will use as stimuli for our assessment tasks) and therefore I wish to seek permission from the Darug people, the traditional Custodians of the land on which James Ruse High School was built, for our own drama performances based on Indigenous literature.
Our drama class would also be delighted to have a Darug elder visiting our school, so on behalf of my drama class 10DR1, I would like to invite a Darug elder to come and enrich our understanding of the Indigenous people and culture. If you would kindly accept this request, please contact me via my email helenmoon2@hotmail.com . Thankyou for your time.

I am yet to receive a reply, but I really hope a Darug elder can visit our school to educate us about Aboriginal culture and theatre!!

Drama Log 1

Date: 27/07/10
What we did:
This term we are starting a new unit of drama which focuses on Aboriginal theatre. Ms Webb started the lesson by giving us a pop quiz on the names of Indigenous people. The questions were:

Name an Indigenous…
1. Politician currently with a seat in Parliament.
2. Political figure of the past
3. Sportsperson who has represented the country
4. Athlete who has represented the country in the Olympics (other than Kathy Freeman)
5. Music group
6. 3 films about Indigenous people
7. Actor/Actress
8. Australian of the year
9. 2 Indigenous writers/poets
10. Dreamtime story.

I was shocked at my inability to answer more than half of these questions. It was a clear indication of my ignorance of the Indigenous culture and of my very limited knowledge about the contribution of Indigenous people to our society. I felt ashamed that I had never previously been struck with the motivation to research about Indigenous people, the first inhabitants of Australia, even though I had been bothered to follow the recent gossip about Caucasian Australian celebrities such as Nicole Kidman. Embarrased and guilty, I searched up the answers to the 10 questions of the pop quiz as soon as I arrived home.

Answers
1. Marion Scrymgour (member of the Australian Labour Party)
2. Mr Tungatalum (late member of the Country Liberal Party)
3. Lionel Morgan – first Indigenous person to play in a professional Australian rugby league
4. Benn Harradine – first Indigenous person to represent Australia as a field athlete at the Olympics (2008 Beijing). Harradine is a discus thrower.
5. Warumpi Band (consisting of George Burarrwanga, Neil Murray, Sammy Butcher, Gordon Butcher)
6. Rabbit Proof Fence (2002), Storm Boy (1976), Black and White (2002)
7. Ernie Dingo
8. Professor Michael Dodson (2009 Australian of the Year)
9. Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal), Sally Morgan
10. The Rainbow Serpent

After the pop quiz, everyone brainstormed as many ideas as possible that came into their mind when they thought of Indigenous people. My brainstorming diagram looked like this:

Following the brainstorming session, we were given sheets about the different ways to make an Acknowledgement of Country, which is an expression of respect for the Traditional Custodians of the place.
An example is “I would like to begin by acknowledging the Darug people, the traditional custodians on whose land this drama room was built”. We will be making an Acknowledgement of Country at the start of every drama lesson from today onwards.
The sheets also included statistics that revealed the enormous disparity between the education received by non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians. One of such statistics (which I appalled at) was that only 3% of Aboriginal students complete a university degree.
I also researched statistics which highlight the wide gap between the health status of non-Indigenous and Indigenous Australians:
-In 2004-2005, Indigenous adults are twice as likely as non-Indigenous adults to report their health as fair or poor
-Hospitalisation rates are higher for Indigenous Australians, particularly for conditions that are potentially preventable such as diabetes and kidney disease.
-The mortality rates of Indigenous people from 2001 to 2005, were almost three times the rate for non-Indigenous people in Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory
Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

In class we discussed the reasons why Indigenous people have shorter lifespans, and the possible explanations we thought of included:
1. A change in diet for Indigenous people from a natural one rich in energy and nutrients (since Indigenous people were hunter-gatherers who ate foods like kangaroo meat, honey and bush tucker) to a diet high in sugar, salt, starch and fat after European settlers introduced foods such as flour, junk food and processed meat. Research shows that Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory eat more sugar, white flour and drink more carbonated soft drinks than the average Australian. The bodies of Indigenous people are not accustomed to a Western diet and therefore Indigenous people are more likely to develop diet-related diseases such as cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
2. The higher level of drug abuse among Indigenous people than non-Indigenous people - European settlers have also brought with them harmful drugs such as alcohol and tobacco, which have passed on to the Indigenous people. Research indicates that
The overall level of ‘current’ illegal drug use (drug use in the previous 12 months) among the Indigenous population (aged 15 years or older living in non-remote areas) was more than twice the level of the general Australian population (aged 14 years or older) (28% compared with 13%)
Source: Australian Indigenous Health Info Net
3. The fact that European settlers have systematically displaced the Indigenous people’s culture, language and sacred sites, leaving them impoverished, vulnerable and without a place to depend on. This abominable historical event affects Indigenous people until this day, one clear example being the continual diminution of Indigenous dialects – of the initial 600 (approx.) dialects only 200 remain, and even these dialects are endangered. Indigenous people also have a lack of trust in the non-Indigenous people due to their horrible sufferings of the past– Ms Webb told the class about how it took 3months worth for her sister to gain the trust of an Indigenous group elder/leader (she had to do this to teach Aboriginal Studies).

I have learnt SO much about Indigenous people, their culture and history from today’s drama lesson and I am looking forward to this new unit of drama!!