Palm Island music festival showcases Aboriginal stories
A north Queensland Aboriginal community has come together to celebrate dreamtime stories and songs from local islands. Three generations of a Palm Island family held the sunset concert as part of the Australian festival of chamber music, bringing their oral histories to a new audience.
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00:00With stunning tropical sunsets and a strong sense of identity, Palm Island is like nowhere
00:09else.
00:10I grew up with this thing in my hand from a little kid, so it's good to be back.
00:15With a beachside setting, the community is witness to a premiere event.
00:21Yeah, welcome, Atlanta.
00:25We're the first to hear their creation stories with a jazz and classical twist.
00:30The storyline of Gobble is a big giant snake coming through, making his way from up north.
00:38He created our creeks and our rivers, so we can live off that and sort of gave us the
00:45way of life too as well.
00:48The project Three Generations Three Songs showcases the artist's connections to country.
00:54It's so important for the community to hear what you're taking out to the world.
00:59The beauty of projects like this is that there's new people that learn more about the beauty
01:04of the culture here and how strong the culture actually is here.
01:08While Palm Island is home to the descendants of at least 40 tribes who were forced here
01:13from the mainland, the original people were the Marmba people, with song lines and a Dreamtime
01:18connection to the islands.
01:21It was the first time for artist Gayle Marbo to sing in public.
01:28At first it was a little bit nerve-wracking, then I went like, no, no, no, we're all family.
01:33We all come together.
01:34We all come here to be part of this.
01:37And an opportunity for a 15-year-old budding rapper.
01:41With Palm, I'm just trying to lift up the community, trying to make it not look like
01:51a bad place for other people that deal with us.
01:55The concert is another way to honour the island's original custodians.
01:59It means so much, like, it makes you feel full, full with the power of your people,
02:05the spirit.
02:06And give hope to a new generation.
02:09It doesn't matter if you come from a small island, you can make really big things happen.