On Friday night I went to the first of only two performances of BAB’s new show. I was so overwhelmed that as soon as I got home I had to write to the show’s director Stephen Richardson:

Dear Stephen,

I enjoyed and respected last night’s performance so much that I want to get down on e-paper what I felt/thought about it before its impact recedes too far into my addled memory for me to be able to retrieve it.

I can’t recall a show in the last ten years (which in fact means I can’t recall a show) that I have enjoyed and been moved by as much – the look, the sound, the meaning were seamlessly integrated. The way the space was occupied, the aesthetic, the accompaniment, the background media, the playing to the performers’ strengths, the use of text – all were so focussed and so profoundly aligned in their direction that the result was overwhelming. I can’t find the words to express how moved I was.

But that’s not the half of it. I am convinced I witnessed a culture-changing moment. From this point on, ‘Australian music’ is something different from what it was yesterday. Language has of course been used in a contemporary musical context before but usually as something exotic or private (I can’t find the right word – parochial, personal, specific…).
What dirtsong has done is move from saying this is OUR culture to this is YOUR culture.

Just as blackfella visual art has become, in the eyes of the world, the heart and soul of ‘Australian art’, so this event has shifted (or at least will shift) the international consciousness of ‘Australian music’.

Sadly, just as the recognition of the beauty of blackfella images has done nothing to improve the social conditions and political power of blackfellas, so it is a sure thing that this recognition will not immediately impact on the ‘real world’ either. After all, black music has always been the fundament of American music without much appreciable effect on black power.

BUT, I believe it is major step in the process of blackfellas civilising their visitors. And, as we witness black and white musicians playing together in dirt that is so clearly respected and cherished as being the ground of its long term custodians, so we may be able to imagine a world where that leadership moves beyond the musical. And being able to imagine another way is perhaps the first step to finding it.

Last night I experienced sadness and joy, but above all, awe. A vision of a different world became that little bit clearer.

Thankyou all