Monday’s child challenges perceptions of aboriginal identity

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Monday’s Child challenges perceptions of identity by Rebecca Harcourt 3 November 2015

Imagine walking into a room and sitting down with a group of people; they are strangers. They ask you to introduce yourself. You do. Then they ask you personal questions: where are you from, or what’s your background? You’re in the middle of answering, unaware of the confused glances around the table, when someone interrupts you. They’re in shock. They don’t believe you. No one does. “Really?” they exclaim, “I wouldn’t have picked it”. Monday’s Child seeks to challenge and deconstruct perceptions of Aboriginal identity through a performative and intimate exploration of self and what it means to be “Black” in the 21st century. I am proud to be Black. Yet, my fair skin leads me into a position of ongoing ambiguity, where I am subjected to the experience of constant questioning, prejudices and racism. I have been asked all my life to justify and quantify my identity in a language that has its origins in the assimilation policy. This performance has emerged out of my frustration and anger at having to deal with such ongoing interrogation.” (Riana Tatana) One things I have always

loved about live theatre is when it takes you on a journey you least expected. Nura Gili’s Riana Tatana, who is in her honours year at UNSW recently created and performed Monday’s Child. This performative composition and experience engaged and played with her audience expectations in an intimate and sophisticated way. Monday’s Child unveiled a myriad of layers which can confound many, especially if they haven’t questioned or realised their own standpoints. As Riana shares: “Throughout Australia’s history, Indigenous theatre and performance has played, and continues to play, an important role in constructing, deconstructing, and contesting Indigenous identities. This research project has emerged out of my interest in this relationship between Aboriginal identity and the new genre of contemporary performance . This interest was prompted by three types of experience: theatrical; critical; and personal. In theatrical terms, I have been inspired by the experimental work of various Aboriginal cross-

disciplinary performance artists such as Dalisa Pigram, Vicki Van Hout and Sarah-Jane Norman. More specifically, I have been intrigued by the physical vocabularies of Pigram’s solo theatrical dance Guidrr Guidrr (2013) and Vicki Van Hout’s theatrical dance work Briwyant (2011), which both explore diverse urban and traditional cultural experiences. Lastly, Norman’s work that includes both installation and the difficult genre of intimate theatre complicated how I thought about the fluid nature of Aboriginal identity, what it means to be of mixed blood and how these ideas emerge and operate within performance.” As Su Goldfish Manager / Producer of Creative Practice Lab, School of the Arts and Media, UNSW Arts & Social Sciences shares: “Monday’s Child opens up to us the experiences of Aboriginal people who continue to live under a constant and critical gaze. An insightful, funny and gentle performance from honours student Riana Tatana, Monday’s Child reveals the impact of those critical looks and comments that say, this is how you can be Aboriginal, and this how you should perform Aboriginal. It also tells us that this experience is not just a thing

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of the past but continues to be the experience for many Aboriginal people today.” Riana who drew so much on her own personal experience to create the piece shares: “I identify as a Bundjalung woman from the Northern Rivers area and a Maori woman from Auckland, New Zealand. Yet, throughout my short twenty-one years of life, I have experienced a countless number of prejudice and racist interactions or confrontations with a great deal of people from various backgrounds. Whether these interactions take place with one person or a group of people, I am always questioned, interrogated and/or ridiculed about my Aboriginal identity because of the way I physically appear—I am not black enough. I believe this is a common experience among many other fair skin Aboriginal peoples, including my own relatives, close friends and acquaintances. In order to begin to challenge these perceptions, I turn to the practice of contemporary performance, which I feel, as Norman suggests, is the only way I can truly “begin to grasp for insight.” (Norman 2012, p. 3). Thus, I am using performance to question my audience and myself “How can I use contemporary performance to challenge essentialised ideas of Indigeneity in Australia in order to recognise its fluid, diverse and contextual nature?” Although it must be noted that this question is subject to change throughout the writing of my thesis, as all research questions do. More specifically, I am interested in exploring how black operates, as well as preconceptions of culture. In the making of a new work, I seek to reveal how Aboriginality can be constantly be remade

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through inscriptions of subjectivity, so Indigenous Australians can continue to move towards an open and undefined understanding of Black identity. For instance, Yin Paradies speaks to this more closely by introducing the idea of “pan-Indigeniety”, which is as an all-encompassing term that refers to Indigenous peoples as a homogenous group and underpins the key idea that I seek to challenge within performance. Within the contemporary era and the wider Australian public, such a construction has led to generalised assumptions of Indigeneity, and in turn created specific “protocols and ethics” that must be adhered to in order to be considered “Aboriginal” ( 356). Paradies argues that this includes a number of different constructed fantasies, including: exclusivity, cultural alterity, marginality, physicality and morality (357). Morrisey suggests that these elements construct boundaries that “interpolate every Indigenous person” without regard to other facets of identity and subjective experiences “through a plethora of stereotyped images” (qtd in Paradies 357). Within my performance, I am interested in the fantasy of physicality and the resounding requirement for the presence of culture. Firstly, the Indigenous body is assumed to be characterised by specific racial signifiers that evoke a particular “identity” of “Blackness”. For instance, Paradies notes that physicality, such as skin pigmentation, is “exceptionally important in the recognition and validation of Aboriginal identity” (359). Within my dissertation, I argue that this is partly upheld through the very term of “Black”, which subsequently identifies race through colour. Furthermore, the

expectation of performing cultural alterity leaves urban Indigenous people acute with the feeling of ambivalence and alienation. Physicality and culture then are both essentialising and limiting identity frameworks, which need to be challenged in order to emphasise the diverse and contextual nature of Indigeneity, that does not need to adhere to a category of “one-size fits all”. This contestation is at the centre of my work.” The depth of Riana’s analysis is echoed with the strengths of her commanding performance capabilities which also reveal her authenticity, vulnerability, generosity and sensitivity to create a transformative and compelling experience for the audience. Through playing with location, Rianna created a virtual site specific piece drawing on a promenade execution inside the studio space with only three audience member permitted per performance. Through diminishing the fourth wall in Mondays Child, Riana unraveled the more traditional performer audience relationship to create and draw on the magic propensity of a very intimate relationship between performer and audience. Through Riana’s play on dialogue and questions seeking audience responses, she orchestrated different scenarios to play out dependent on audience’s responses. This not only added to the depth and impact of the performance, it heightened the theatrical intimacy and excitement we experienced. Riana is to be congratulated on Monday’s Child. It would be tremendous to see Riana have the opportunity to develop this piece and performed in the future, perhaps there’s a window in the Sydney Festival, Wesley Enoch?


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