RE-IMAGINING INDIGENEITY THROUGH PERFORMANCE: Creative Pathways to Urban Aboriginality and Cultural Survival

Abstract

Due to the impacts of colonisation urban Indigenous Australians have been denied access to much of their cultural knowledge. It is their imagination, their own creativity in combining the knowledge that is available to them with other forms of cultural expression, which has helped provide the basis for an urban Aboriginality. By exploring the role of imagination and creativity in the process of cultural survival and the construction of identity, this paper examines contemporary experiences of Indigeneity among Aboriginal performers in Sydney, Australia. It provides an ethnographic account of the Woggan-ma-gule Morning Ceremony and discusses how a group of Indigenous performers are re-imagining Indigeneity and utilising creative action as a resource for challenging negative stereotypes of Aboriginality.