for Borroloola’s DanceSite, Marlene Karkadoo Timothy and Lia Pa’apa’a
This fighting town is in remission
for tonight pride is torch lit by stars
as DanceSite shakes-a-leg and stomps
a country whole. Assembling on blankets
in a dusty football ground our goals
have been transformed into outdoor cinema
as Chooky Dancers raise a storm
with Gurrumul and Blue King Brown.
And as the bardibardi and malbu make ready, collecting
players of clap sticks and didj, the dancers and kids
flicker excitedly between blankets, all painted
and dressed in their tribe’s colours. Tonight
everything is sacred by degree and in Language
as purple Garrawa perform the Nanny Goat Dance
and everyone cracks it. The golden Gudanji bosses
of the Nuwalinya cycle sing next in descending scales
their metamorphic visions of white-ochred munga-munga
as mermaids dancing with plaited
wet bark and windmill blades as feathers – striding
in a loop from bore to bore; dancing
and singing across country still; and then there’s hush
as Yanyuwa men fly in red and white ochre, anklets
of leaves, bi-plane headdresses and wings
as arms spread wide for strength
stomped through the pelvis to ground in remembrance
of war’s search and rescue service. When a spirit
passes on, it returns to country. This is our inherited
fight, to sing the song back to our land.