Category: History Shows & Workshops

Background Research: Dignified Anger


Here are links to the background research for the four stories in our show:

Buen Vivir and Dignified Anger

  • The stories of María, the Garífuna and the mine, and the Lenca people and the Dam, are adapted from Cuentos de la Digna Rabia y el Buen Vivir (Stories of Dignified Anger and Living Well) from the book “Tierra somos. We are the Earth: Buen Vivir and Territorial Defence in Mesoamerica” (Colectivos en Acción, Mexico, 2020) Click Here
    These stories are seeds sown for future generations, to cultivate new worlds.

Background information for the stories comes from:

  • The Nueva Esperanza mine protests in Honduras: Click Here
  • Berta Cáceres acceptance speech, 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize ceremony: Click Here
  • Remembering Berta Cáceres: Click Here

Bill Harney’s War

  • Bill Harney’s War comes from the 1958 ABC radio documentary of the same name, produced by John Thompson. A written version was published by Curry O’Neil, 1983, with a foreword by Prof Manning Clark.

The Two-Dollar Coin
The information for the story of the two-dollar coin and Gwotja Tjungurrayi is primarily from:

  • Jillian E Barnes: Resisting the captured image: how Gwoja Tjungurrayi, ‘One Pound Jimmy’, escaped the ‘Stone Age’. Click Here
  • Australian Dictionary of Biography – Gwoja Jungarrayi (c. 1895–1965), Jillian Barnes (2024) Click Here
  • Elder, lawman, survivor: stamp research is the latest chapter in Gwoja Tjungurrayi’s remarkable life in pictures (The Conversation, 2021) Click Here
  • Facing the truth of Australia’s indigenous massacres (ABC Radio, 2019) Click Here
  • The remarkable life of the Warlpiri-Anmatyerre man on the $2 coin (NITV, 2023) Click Here
  • Real True History: The Coniston Massacre, Dick Kimber, Alice Springs News (2003) Click Here
  • Documentary “Coniston”. Dir. David Batty. Rebel Films (2016) Click Here

Sir Gawain and Lady Ragnell

  • This comes to us from somewhere way back in the 14th century. There are of course many versions. The book Hags and Heroes by Polly Young-Eisendrath, Inner City Books (1984) has been our main source.

Links for further reading:

  • “The Path of the Serpent” by Anthony Ham in The Monthly. Article on the McArthur Mine: Click Here
  • Berta Cáceres, Guardian of the Rivers: Click Here
  • Podcast “Get your armies off our bodies”: Click Here
  • Website “Reasons to be cheerful” created by David Byrne from Talking Heads: Click Here

Dignified Anger Program can be downloaded here>>

Compiled by Jan and Penny: August 2024

Immigration: For A Better Life In Australia

A Musical Storytelling Show                                                                                                                                                                   Year 5, Immigration

This was a great incursion to support out Immigration unit. Jan engaged our students with his great storytelling abilities as well as his entertaining singing and variety of instrumental use. We look forward to having him return to our school next year. (Lisa Baker, Boronia Heights PS)

Enquiries/ Bookings

       Brief

 Using stories, including Jan’s own family story of migration, songs, including Indigenous (with permission) and folk songs, and graphics and maps dating back to the the 13th century, Jan tells the fascinating story of people coming to the Australian continent. Including:

*  The ten thousand year journey out of Africa of the First Australians.

*  How Indigenous people migrated over the continent, with many languages.

*  The First Fleet and how that changed this continent forever.

*  Caroline Chisholm who brought many women to a male dominated colony.

*  The 1850s gold rush, the beginning of contemporary multi-cultural Australia

*  The Chinese gold diggers walking 800 k from Robe to the goldfields.

 * Refugees today, and how everyone came here for better life (though maybe not  the convicts).

Practical Details

Duration            60 mins plus questions                                                                                                                                                                                         Set up                  1 hour                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Cost                     $5 per student. $500 minimum per show, plus  travel to some locations.

Enquiries/ Bookings

 

 

First Nations. First Fleet. First Contact.

Music, Visual Art, Storytelling Show                                                                                                                                                      Year 4 (First Contact), 5, 6                                                                                                                                                                          Secondary Australian Studies/History 

“The students still talk about the poems, stories that you shared with us, on how the British explorers were received by the Indigenous Australians. It was fantastic to hear the two perspectives through your musical talent. The use of paintings/ visuals aided the students learning by connecting the stories that you told.” (Madeleine Paslis, Toorak PS)

 

Enquiries/ Bookings

 Brief

A music and story show, with archival images, about first contact and developing relationships between Indigenous Australians and the British colonists, from Captain Cook onwards, including:

*     Indigenous songs before colonisation (with permission).

*     Captain Cook shooting at Aboriginal people at Botany Bay/Kamay, and his makaratta – peace after a dispute – with the     Yimithir people at Reconciliation Rocks, Cooktown (we have the word kangaroo’ from the Yimithir word Gangarruu).

*  Convict songs – a pop song from the day (Botany Bay) and a genuine convict song (Jim Jones), about how they came here because of thieving (with background re gaols in England etc)

* Events of early Sydney: Indigenous and soldiers dancing together; small pox epidemic, war with Pemulwuy, Gov. Phillip speared.

*  How Victoria was different: first failed settlement, and how escaped convict William Buckley was welcomed by Wathaurong people as a spirit (Ngamadjidj) come back from the dead; how land speculator John Batman tried to buy land surrounding Port Phillip Bay.

* Jan’s personal story of his ‘first contact’ with Aboriginal people, as a boy in Gippsland.

* The 1984/6 story of the last Indigenous people to make contact with white Australians (Pintupi and Martu people in the NT and WA).

* A song to finish, Thank You for the Welcome, which sums it up in the context of continuing peace between black and white Australians.

Practical Details

Cost                 $5 per student. $500 minimum per show.  Plus travel in some locations.
Duration          60 minuets plus questions
Set up time      60 minutes

Enquiries/ Bookings