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Posted on August 30, 2010 - by sophia

Creative Development & Araluen Celebration Wrap

Dear friends of Namatjira,

After a fun filled, jam packed creative development in the NT, the time is nigh to fill those who weren’t there in on the details and to give thanks those who helped make it happen!

The most outstanding features of the creative development were the moments the Big hART team spent with the Namatjira family, the Battarbee family and the incredible collaboration of artists. Each of the 39 company members brought their own expertise, which exploded in a celebration of art and Albert Namatjira at the culmination of the 3 weeks. To the designers, producers, performers, visual artists, doco crew, family, potters, choir members, BBQ chefs, program distributors, translators, cultural advisors, volunteers, funders, sponsors and audience members… each and every contribution, great or small, was most highly valued.

The Creative Development was filled with many discoveries that will filter through to the premiere of the performance, co-produced with Company B Belvoir, in Sydney on September 29, where we are now in rehearsals!

Our workshops in Alice Springs began with visits from Namatjira family artists who taught us the art of watercolour painting. Over the three weeks the company built up their own small gallery of works that were displayed backstage and are now on the walls of the rehearsal room in Sydney! Derek Lynch, Kevin Namatjira, Elton Wirri, Gloria Pannka and Ivy Pareroultja also stunned us with their live artwork, chalk drawing at the celebration.

No doubt, the first of the highlights for this trip was our journey to Ntaria (Hermannsburg), the mission where Albert Namatjira was raised and lived. We had the pleasure of meeting with many people in Ntaria including Namatjira family members, the internationally renowned Hermannsburg Potters, and the Ntaria Ladies Choir who treated us to an intimate performance of their spine tingling harmonies. The Ntaria journey culminated in a creative exchange of scenes from the play and songs from the choir, all within the corrugated iron walls of the old mission bakehouse.

Some of this was repeated at the ‘Namatjira’ celebration at the Araluen Art Centre two weeks later, augmented by much, much more – a performance from the choir, a language lesson from Derek and the choir, a pottery demo from Irene Entata and Judith Inkamala, and short film giving insight into the stories of Albert Namatjira’s surviving grandchildren. We also had the great pleasure of performances by internationally acclaimed musicians Archie Roach, Dave Arden and Genevieve Lacey, not to mention portrait painter Robert Hannaford, and of course virtuosic performances by Trevor Jamieson and Derek Lynch, narrated by Scott Rankin…. A taster for the real deal! Lastly, we were graced with the presence of Namatjira’s family in the audience, notably Betty and Marcus Wheeler, Mostyn Kantiltja, the Wirri family, Ivy Pareroultja, Kevin Namatjira’s family, Gloria Pannka and family, and Joseph Rontji. We weer especially lucky also to have Gayle Quarmby with us, an advisor and representative for her father Rex Battarbee, Albert’s great friend and mentor.

The ‘Namatjira’ celebration was seen by over 800 people over two days. Many went through the gallery, bought local produce and some even watched from the foyer, on television screens so as not to miss out. The excitement and buzz has continued to Sydney!

Make sure you check out all the photos on Flickr, and stay tuned for some video footage coming online soon!

Also, check out jaimeswaites.com for behind the scenes updates at the Sydney rehearsals

Posted on August 22, 2010 - by sophia

Radio National – Artworks

Trevor and Scott speak here about Albert, the Namatjira project and friendship between black and white

Posted on August 12, 2010 - by sophia

Alice Springs News – August 2010

NAMATJIRA: UNEXPECTED COMEDY

by Kieran Finnane, Alice Springs News

Trevor Jamieson has a rival and what a pair the two make.
Jamieson’s mature brilliance, moving from sombre, poignant notes to moments of satire, farce and vaudeville, was matched by the bubbling charm, the joyful high camp comedy and the beautiful singing voice of Derek Lynch when they took all the roles in Big hART’s presentation of scenes from the play Namatjira, written by Scott Rankin.
At the weekend’s celebrations of the Namatjira legacy the scenes were blended with other acknowledgments on stage of the Namatjira legacy – a performance by the Ntaria Ladies Choir, a presentation by the Hermannsburg Potters, short films made with the Namatjira family in the course of developing the project.
Archie Roach, who performed three moving songs, also spoke of the way Namatjira had touched him while he was still at school in faraway Victoria: “He was a hero to the Aboriginal people when Aboriginal people needed heroes.”
But the scenes from the play were a runaway highlight, guaranteeing audiences for a full production expected to return to Alice next year after premiering at Sydney’s Belvoir Street Theatre in September and going on national tour.
The production is billed as asking the question, “How did Australia’s most iconic Indigenous watercolour artist end up dying a broken man?”. The seriousness which that question promises is certainly there, and especially in the final scene when Jamieson as Namatjira – torn between two worlds – asks himself, “Maybe I have no story?”
Along the way though Jamieson and Lynch take us for a rollicking ride, with jokes, satiric jibes and hilarious scenes, whether set on the Hermannsburg mission or on Namatjira’s interstate excursions, where the artist was feted, fawned over and patronised.
It’s a story about white Australia’s response to an Aboriginal man as much as it is about the man himself.
“What were we yearning for?” asks the play of its assumed white audience.
“A black man we can be proud of?”
Whatever else they achieve, something Big hART can certainly be proud of is bringing to the fore two great Aboriginal talents of the stage, Jamieson and Lynch.

Alice Springs News, August 12, 2010

http://www.alicespringsnews.com.au/1728.html

Posted on August 1, 2010 - by sophia

Araluen Celebration Invite

Posted on April 20, 2010 - by sophia

Lowdown Magazine

Jane Gronow, editor of Australia’s leading youth arts magazine, picked up on all our recent excitement and featured the Namatjira project on their newly revamped online mag. Check it out here….

Posted on April 19, 2010 - by sophia

Jaimes Waites # 2

James has written more about Namatjira here, coupled with updates from other Big hART projects!

Posted on April 8, 2010 - by sophia

Namatjira pitch at Long Paddock

Yesterday we took a small contingent of the Namatjira team to Riverside Theatres in Sydney.

Our goal? To pitch Namatjira to venues and presenters in order to build a national tour of the performance piece in 2011 and 2012.

The team? Writer/director Scott Rankin, actor Trevor Jamieson, musician Genevieve Lacey and creative producer Sophia Marinos.

With one day to rehearse a 15minute excerpt, the pressure was on…. and we pulled it off.

The lights went down, and up came the audio visuals. The audience is transported to Western Aranda country and the world of Lenie and Kevin Namatjira. This important story must be told.

Seamlessly, Trevor Jamieson moves into live performance. Quietly, slowly, gently removing his socks and shoes and shirt, he creates the the world of Albert Namatjira. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret…” As he tells Namatjira’s totemic flying ant dreaming story through movement and dance, the virtuosic Genevieve Lacey entrances the audience with mystical sounds from her the contra-base recorder. To a backdrop of watercolour paintings by Namatjira family artists this is mesmerising.

Rousing applause lets us know that people want to see this show.

The buzz in the foyer afterward, and the flurry of exchanging business cards confirms this. Presenters from Launceston, to Ballarat, to Illawarra, to Darwin, all want this show, if not in 2011 then in 2012.

Now it’s time close the deals…

Posted on March 31, 2010 - by sophia

Namatjira promo film

This 2 minute film was shot in Alice Springs during our Creative Development in March 2010, and edited by Adrian Warburton.

The music you hear is the Ntaria (Hermannsburg) Ladies Choir, and music from Big hART’s Ngapartji Ngapartji .

Thanks to the Namatjira family and descendants, Ngurratjuta Many Hands Art Centre and the Strehlow Research Centre for working with us to make the film.

Posted on January 18, 2010 - by sophia

Up ’til now… a brief history of the Namatjira Project

Welcome to Namatjira online… where we will keep you up to date with all our goings on.  But before we start on the here and now, let’s rewind 2 years. How did this project start? What is it exactly? Who is involved? Where is it going?

Namatjira is an arts and community development project by acclaimed arts and social change organization Big hART. You can read this concise post about the project, and find out more about Big hART on our website. Below you will read about the project’s evolution…

The project had 18 months of concept development prior to kicking into gear on the ground in July 2009. Writer/director Scott Rankin had been developing the idea for some time – discussing it with Namatjira descendant Elton Wirri, and actor Trevor Jamieson – when Company B artistic director Neil Armfield took up the idea, and agreed to program the show for his final season at Belvoir St Theatre.

And away we went… 15 months to consult, exchange and run workshops in Alice Springs and Hermannsburg – in Western Aranda country, the country of Albert Namatjira – before the show’s premiere at the end of September 2010. Which sold out and performed to critical acclaim.

The Namatjira Project is focused on research and development, as well as grass roots activity, engaging project partners and key senior Namatjira family members. Over the last few months, we have begun to collect and explore a resource bank of information, photographic material, anecdotes, artifacts and inspirational conversations. The Strehlow Research Centre in Alice Springs has been of vital assistance here. Further trips to archives, museums, galleries, missions, communities and families have and will be undertaken.

So read through the posts on this blog to find out more about the various aspects of this new Big hART project.

Posted on January 17, 2010 - by sophia

Ngurratjuta Many Hands Art Centre & Namatjira’s family

Central to the Namatjira Project has been a partnership with Ngurratjuta Iltja Ntjarra, Many Hands Art Centre. Based in Alice Springs, Ngurratjuta represents 3rd generation Western Aranda watercolour artists who continue to paint in the tradition of their grandfather, Albert Namatjira, and many of whom are his direct descendants.

On invitation, we began visiting the art centre on Mondays and Tuesdays when their member artists are painting. We have since formed relationships with many of Albert’s grandchildren and the grandchildren of his contemporaries – Lenie Namatjira, Kevin Namatjira, Gloria Paanka, Betty Wheeler, Ivy Pareroultja and Mervyn Rubuntja to name a few. As senior custodians of the Namatjira story they have given Big hART their consent to proceed with the project.

With Ivy we visited Hermannsburg exploring the buildings and rooms Albert Namatjira would have slept in, been to school and church in and the areas where he would’ve played. In the middle of it all sat Albert’s truck – donated by Ampol during his famous trip to Sydney… now rusted and derelict.

Stemming from our partnership with Ngurratjuta Art Centre, we are developing an exhibition of contemporary watercolour works – painted by Ngurratjuta artists – to run alongside the show. The watercolour movement was initiated by Albert and his contemporaries, and the exhibition aims to highlight the strength of the current movement and to generate greater exposure for these artists.