A warning, this story contains the images and voice of an Aboriginal person who has died. More than 250 First Nation’s languages were once spoken across Australia, but decades of colonisation has made them either endangered or lost forever. But a unique collaboration in Tasmania is reawakening the original words of the Islands’ First people.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00In Nipaluna, Hobart, a symphony of sounds and ceremony flows through the Federation
00:10Concert Hall, fusing classical music with ancient language from Lutruwita, Tasmania.
00:28Dwayne Everett-Smith is a Palawa man who's invited the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra on
00:33an extraordinary journey.
00:36What we want to do is gift you an opportunity to connect to a culture and a language that
00:42you will have nowhere else.
00:49The collaboration is called Songs of Ceremony, a project creating a full length album in
00:54Palawakani, the revived language of Tasmanian Aboriginal people.
00:59This orchestra has been around for 77 years and without a doubt it is one of the most important
01:06projects that we've ever done.
01:09There were once many unique Aboriginal languages on the island, but like in other parts of
01:18Australia they were largely silenced in the aftermath of colonisation.
01:24By forbidding the speaking of language then you stop the sharing of knowledge, you stop
01:30the sharing of identity, you stop the sharing of understanding who you are.
01:34But also the songs and ceremonies that are associated with those places as well.
01:39But some words survived, documented in books, spoken in stories and recorded on old wax cylinders.
01:45Whether the languages are spoken or are sleeping or resting for a time, those languages are still
02:02in country and they're still in our deep memory.
02:07For almost 30 years Teresa Sainty has been part of the Palawakani Language Program, which
02:13has brought back to life hundreds of retrieved words and phrases.
02:17She says the new orchestral collaboration highlights the resilience of her people.
02:22We have survived and we have a language that not only can we speak in, but we can sing in
02:29once again as our people always have done.
02:32A decade ago Dwayne Everett Smith released the first commercially available single in Palawakani.
02:42The singer-songwriter has also been the voice of a multi-million dollar tourism Australia
02:47campaign.
02:49His latest project with the orchestra is a celebration of culture, but it also includes songs that
02:55reflect on the intergenerational trauma carried by many First Nations people, including his
03:00birth mother who struggled with substance abuse and put him up for adoption when he was five
03:06years old.
03:07It's a song that I wrote to my mother that acknowledges her tears, that I see your tears,
03:12I see your fears, because I never got to have that acknowledgement.
03:18She had overdosed before I got to have a realisation of what I know now.
03:25All up, about 12 songs will be included on the new album, which has taken several years
03:31to develop.
03:40The songs will be premiered with performances on country for the Tasmanian Aboriginal community
03:45next year.
03:47That will be followed by a series of concerts for schools and the public across the state,
03:52and potentially further afield.
04:17build on the new album.
04:33There are so many things I love about this.
04:38There are so many things I love about this.
04:40Where do you think that there are so many things I'm going to make?