Media Release

Indigenous Tiwi Elders from the Nguiu community on Bathhurst Island in the Tiwi Islands will provide a unique performance of traditional singing and dancing in the courtyard of the National Film and Sound Archive this Wednesday 18 November at 12.30 pm.

Tiwi Elders traditionally create and sing songs for their community, continuing a long history of oral music culture. They perform at ceremonial and social gatherings, recording through song important contemporary events as well as telling in music traditional stories about their land and people.

The elders will perform Ngarukuruwala (we sing songs). Ngarukuruwala combines the rhythmic and melodic structures of Indigenous Tiwi music with those of jazz, creating new versions of old songs to inspire reinvigoration and preservation of Tiwi language and culture. The songs and dances tell country stories, history stories and spirit stories.

The Tiwi Elders will be at the NFSA to look at audiovisual material in the National Collection relating to their community and culture. Such material includes home movies, documentaries and feature films made by, or about, Torres Strait Islander peoples and cultures. The NFSA will then repatriate materials back to Torres Strait communities for cultural maintenance purposes. 

This event is part of an ongoing engagement process with peoples of the Torres Strait.

WHAT:            Ngarukuruwala, singing and dancing by Tiwi Elders

WHERE:          National Film and Sound Archive courtyard

WHEN:            12.30pm Wednesday 18 November