Dear DanceHouse People,
How do I recover my white garment, washed in Murray
water? I don’t like this emphasis on
colour. What are we, the ‘whities’ who
need our sins expunged by traditional washing.
I deplore the use of ‘black’ to define Aboriginal people, many of whom
do not have very dark pigmentation. It means
the same as ‘nigger’ which has deplorable connotations, yet people like to own ‘black’.
We are coming up again soon to Australia Day, which
Aboriginal people deliberately use divisively, by rejecting the general
celebration of our nation in favour of a separate mourning of the ‘invasion’. As long as this persists, Reconciliation will
be impossible. As an all-inclusive nation, we need to find a different day on
which to remember and mourn the tragedies of the past. This shameful history should be commemorated by
all Australians, not just those who can prove genetic, ancestral occupancy of
Country since ancient times.
I see from the DanceHouse Diary that DanceHouse is at the
forefront of the divisiveness and internal social dislocation that tragically
splits the world’s community of people. ‘Anti-Capitalism’
is a failed philosophy that is ‘so last century’. It is the sort of movement that has generated
phenomena like Trump. I notice that you
charge a ticket price! You should make
your performances free and include a voluntary donation box at the entrance,
where you would most probably take in more than you do selling tickets. It is fine being an adolescent iconoclast,
but it is quite unrealistic in the real world and the predominance of these
divisive attitudes of unbridled hatred towards others produces the worst
reactions.
In the second performance piece, where two people,
apparently with international ‘dance’ experience. Just flopped around for an
hour in a dark, undefined space, moving slightly closer and then further from
time to time, which was as close to meaningless as anything I have seen. As to the soundtrack, I think one of the
conflicting voices repeated the Moslem declaration of faith, but the other
sounds were meaningless to me. Were they
Xian chants? It was essentially trivial
movement to noise. It was quite
hypnotic, and I cannot say I did not enjoy it – on some level, but watching the
trees move in the wind, which I often like to do, is just as entertaining.
Better explanation of the first performance piece would have
been better. Fortunately, I read the
brief notes that were hidden away in the foyer and which I am sure most people
did not read. I did look at the plates,
but there was no time to study them to see if there was hidden significance in
what was drawn. None of us knew what to
do when we sat at the table. I think one
person gobbled up their scone without any idea of its significance, while I was
horrified by what it all meant and found it very confronting and thought
provoking. I would not eat the bread
because I am a vegetarian, let alone not a cannibal, but the shock of thinking
about the slavery that used to produce this bread and the symbolism of Aboriginal
blood would have prevented me from even one bite. There was too much waiting without knowing
what was happening and that greatly distracted from the experience.
I liked the idea of the washing, but the projected lists of massacres
was unintelligibly written and so spasmodic in its projection that only the
idea of it had meaning and its realisation was a failure. I thought the ratio between the huge, central
performance space and the audience space along the dusty edges of the floor
said something about your attitude to us, the people for whom you perform. Clearly, from all this, DanceHouse is all
about ‘us’ and I regret that I am an outsider and not one of ‘you’. Gosh!
I so hate all this divisiveness.
Please send me back my white garment, randomly numbered ‘1’. It will become a treasured part of my
wardrobe, remembering the context in which it was laundered. The massacres were a long time ago, but the
attitude of inter-racial hatred that is promoted mostly by Aboriginal people
and their fellow-travellers is causing a perpetuation of the tragedies. I understand that now days more Aboriginal
babies are being removed from their families than before the Stolen Generation
Report. There are things wrong with our
Economic System, but they need to be fixed, and that will not happen while
people like you dream of replacing it with some sort of ideal, theoretical
utopia, and constantly express this hatred and contempt for other humans
instead of working within the ‘system’ to make it work for everyone. This conclusion is the result of me reaching
seventy years of age and having gradually observed the folly of my own youthful
rebelliousness. Fifty years ago I would
have agreed with all your mythical anti-establishment values, but now I am just
very depressed and disappointed to see that our global society is no closer to
harmony than we were in centuries past.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
The Melbourne Festival gives us the opportunity for unexpected
experiences. Some are truly
transcendental, but others just make me think, and sadly what I think is ‘same
old same old – going nowhere’. We must
not forget the tragedies of the past, but we need a Sorry Day for all of us,
not a divisive one from which us ‘whities’ are excluded. BTW, I studied Aboriginal Cultures with Open
University a few years ago and got a High Distinction, so I feel I have a right
to comment on these issues, not that anyone listens or agrees.
Regards,
naum@tered.org
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