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Sean Choolburra
Who is your mob? My dad’s side is Girrimay and my mum’s side is Kuku Yalanji, Kalkadoon Pitta Pitta. I was born and raised in Townsville. What do you do? For the last 22 years I’ve been living in Sydney. I studied dancing and was with Bangarra Dance Company. I’ve been doing stand up comedy for the last 11 years. I perform each year at the Melbourne Comedy Festival as a part of Deadly Funnies which is an initiative for black fellas to get into stand up comedy. I just did a show there called 50 Shades of Black. What does family mean to you? Family is like that old cliche. Happy wife, happy life. It is so true. If the wife is good, the kids are good. It’s always good that when I need to go on a tour, that our home is always good. It helps with everything. What does culture mean to you? Culture is all that we are. Strip away all our Adidas and Nike shoes, Rolex watches, all that, strip back to our basic essentials, and that’s who we are first and foremost as a people, our language, our song, our dance. When people think of us, they think of the Australian sphere, the oldest and the deadliest. What’s the last book you read? Bill Harney’s story about his days in the cattle industry. What is the last movie you saw? Django. I loved the end part where it had the fella from Wolf Creek, John Jarrett. I saw him at the bus line recently.
I told him I was happy and proud to see him on Django. What do you hope for the future of our people? I’d like to see unity for all our mob. We have a bit of ‘them and us’ and a bit of ‘that’, so being unified is something I’d like to see. Just be proud and happy when someone acknowledges their background. They may not have had the opportunity before. We as a race should support this. What do you think about the First Nations Telegraph as a 24 hour online news website? I think it’s great to have that exposure all over Australia and the Pacific. Having it 24/7, anyone can get whatever they want at any time, news, arts and sports.