Stirling Theological College

Interlingua: Extending Improvisational Language in Music symposium. Australian Art Orchestra and Faculty of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music Jazz and Improvisation. 22 Sept, 2017 2-6pm. Victorian College of the Arts. With Daniel Wilfred, David Wilfred, Bae Il Dong, Chloe Kim. Sunny Kim. Peter Knight. Robert Vincs, Christopher Hale.

Manikay are the ancestral songs of Arnhem Land, passed down over generations and shaping relationships between people and the country.

Singing Bones foregrounds the voices of manikay singers from Ngukurr in southeastern Arnhem Land and charts their critically acclaimed collaboration with jazz musicians from the Australian Art Orchestra, Crossing Roper Bar. It offers an overview of Wägilak manikay narratives and style, including their social, ceremonial and linguistic aspects, and explores the Crossing Roper Bar project as an example of creative intercultural collaboration and a living continuation of the manikay tradition.

“Through song, the ancestral past animates the present, moving yolŋu (people) to dance. In song, community is established. By song, the past enfolds the present. Today, the unique voices of Wägilak resound over the ancestral ground and water, carried by the songs of old.”

Vocation concerns self-understanding as individuals and communities addressed by God, called into new possibilities for life lived before God. In contemporary Australian society, work, relationships, aspirations, the use of time, and ethical concerns are commonly negotiated topographies of vocation. Luke's Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector (Lk 18:9-14) illustrates contrasting trajectories of vocation through two distinct characterizations: a religious expert and a government lackey are juxtaposed, and one is declared righteous. This parable is ironic, inverting expectations regarding secular and profane occupation, while encouraging humility in discovering God's possibilities for life. Terry Eagleton's ethics (Trouble with Strangers, 2009) provides a useful frame for unpacking the divergent trajectories of the Pharisee and tax collector, through the categories of the imaginary, symbolic and real (after Lacan). The Pharisee's self-confident understanding of vocation is mediated through imaginary and symbolic concerns, which suggest vocation as intrinsically linked to an occupational role, religious affiliation, and duty. This identity is self-cultivated and differentiated as sacred, buffered from everyday entanglements of human experience. Drawn away from everyday situations (he stood by himself to pray), the Pharisee's vocation is demarcated and sustained through symbolic and imaginary practices (temple, tithing, law, and so forth). In contrast, vocation for the tax collector begins in an honest acquiesce to human limitations and contradictions, and a real encounter with himself as fractured and strange. Here, Christian identity is not substantiated by religious representations. The vocation of the

Bilma are hardwood clapsticks used in the traditional manikay (song) of the Yolŋu (or Yolngu) people from Arnhem Land, Australia. The rhythmic patterns of the bilma form the core of ceremonial performance that has been passed down for countless generation, encoding narratives of foundation, legal frameworks and connections between language groups. Yet bilma do significantly more than carry patterns for song and society: the bilma groove, generating momentum that draws families together in song and dance, shaping community and interactions between people and the environment. Bilma are a dynamic node of stability and change. For Wägilak people—one language group within the Yolŋu nations—confronted with language loss and social disintegration, the bilma foster cultural resilience and development: just as the ancestral mokuy (ghost) made new connections as he danced through the land, the bilma give impetus to new relationships, sustaining the manikay (songs) of old within contemporary Australian society.

Corresponding with the aesthetic of bir'yun or 'shimmering brilliance' created by the cross-hatching in Yolŋu painting, manikay (song) might also be characterised by a play of colour and movement, generated through the heterophonic interweaving of voices. While bir'yun might be considered a technique that generates emotion or a sense of beauty, the perception of bir'yun is decidedly more than the aesthetic. Bir'yun encompasses constitutional, political and educational dimensions, affirming Wägilak identity and purpose through an interplay of difference, in the diverse voices that enfolded together on the ceremonial ground (bambula). As the experience of bir'yun is enriched by new voices and colours, a productive approach to collaboration between Yolŋu and Balanda (non-indigenous) Australians is suggested: through mutually enriching conversation, a living interplay of voices is generated that brings life to the whole.

This paper extends out of 10 years of music teaching with Daniel Wilfred and our exploration of 'openings' within manikay for collaborative performance.

Presented at the 19th Symposium on Indigenous Music and Dance, National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia

As COVID19 spread beyond China, Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi appeared on screen to provide the country with an update. He was sweating profusely. The following day, Harirchi tested positive to the virus. This could be viewed as an unfortunate circumstance. Or it might be seen ironically, recognising that the government was ‘deliberately understating the extent of the virus,’ even as it was eating away at the body of the nation (the government as a democratic representation of that body) ...

Why is irony significant for ethics?
If, for Eagleton, the human body is cusped between matter and meaning, constraint and possibility, so too is subjective experience. Indeed, he draws on Lacan to show how subjective awareness is generated by a sense of misrecognition in the gap that such differentials entail, in the slippage between self and symbol. To become aware of this is to perceive a certain self-estrangement at the heart of subjectivity that is redolent with irony. Significantly, this approach need not negate human activity and identity irreparably but might form an opening for present renewal and change. Resonating with a Christian awareness of self-compromise, this view suggests that irony can be an impetus for ethical decision, rather than foreclosing on ethical endeavour as inherently compromised.

This paper examines the place of creativity amid orthodox musical elements in the manikay (public song) tradition of the Yolŋu people of Northern Australia, particularly the song repertoire belonging to the Wägilak clan from Ŋilipidji. Beginning with the Yolŋu metaphor of raki (string) as it describes an individual’s historical constitution, an examination of productive ambiguities built into the rhythmic (bilma) and intervallic (dämbu) forms of manikay underpins the assertion that tradition speaks with living relevance through performed realisation and improvisation. The Australian Art Orchestra’s collaboration with Wägilak songmen, "Crossing Roper Bar," is introduced as a dramatic example of the manikay tradition working in and through contemporary expressions and contexts. This project sustains the ancestral bones of manikay, dutifully curated through the generations as an integral, orthodox framework with complex social, legal, and religious significances. Here, discur...