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Treading the Pathways

A national celebration is born

Along with Ausdance’s Julie Dyson, John Stanwell was on hand to support the first ever Welcome to Country celebrated at the Opening of the Parliament of Australia.

The opening of Parliament is a colourful and ceremonial event, steeped in the British traditions of Black Rods, unwilling Speakers and 19-Gun Salutes, but the opening of the 42nd Parliament was always going to be something special.

Even with eleven years since the last change of Government, and promises to introduce a Welcome to Country and an Apology to the Stolen Generations, few around Parliament House expected anything of the grandeur and gravitas that came from the truly Australian ceremonies that they witnessed on 12 and 13 February 2008.

Matilda House-Williams was asked to represent the traditional custodians of the land on which two Australian Parliaments have been built.

As the organisers began to focus on the detail of the Welcome, discussion soon turned to the wider significance, the national significance, of this ceremony, particularly in light of the Apology scheduled for the following day. In recent weeks, Kevin Rudd had begun talking about the need for new Australian ceremonies, and this provided the inspiration.

And when words are not enough, when we seek to reflect symbolism and create new ceremonies, it is of course to the artists that we turn.

A call was placed to Julie Dyson, National Director for Ausdance. Julie suggested Marilyn Miller, Indigenous dancer, director and choreographer, who was just beginning her second year as National Indigenous Dance Coordinator with Ausdance. More calls were placed, and Marilyn was on the job.

Marilyn had just three small tasks ahead of her – to identify performers from around the country who were available at short notice and who could work well together; to choreograph and direct a performance before the Prime Minister, parliamentarians and a national television audience; and to integrate her dance concepts with the first ever Welcome to Country in both an exciting and culturally appropriate way.

Fortunately Marilyn Miller was ideally suited to the task. Her parents were respected Indigenous leaders, she and her sister have lifelong experience in the arts at senior levels, and as National Indigenous Dance Coordinator for Ausdance’s Treading the Pathways project, Marilyn has a unique awareness of Indigenous dancers in Australia. Perhaps not surprisingly, though it certainly seemed like it at the time, Marilyn also had a good working relationship with Matilda House, and considerable experience in symbolic and ceremonial events.

There was already a small group supporting Matilda to plan the formal Welcome to Country – how she would greet the Prime Minister, how her son Paul’s didgeridoo would lead the proceedings, how a third generation, her grandchildren, would present a message stick to the PM, and how she would present her words of welcome,.

The welcome event was to take place in the Members’ Hall, the formal meeting place of the two Houses of Parliament – that’s the one with the portraits of former PMs, marble floor and a central water feature.

Marilyn had already responded to some of Prime Minister Rudd’s early words - of being a ‘Prime Minister for all Australians’ - in selecting dancers from many parts of the country. She also proposed a mix of traditional and contemporary dances to reflect a ‘living culture’. Once she saw the Members’ Hall pond, and despite the hard marble floor that surrounded it, Marilyn knew she had found both a visually striking stage, and an appropriate mechanism for the meeting between the PM and Matilda – a ‘watering hole’ right in the middle of Parliament House.

Rehearsals were always going to be difficult, since the performers had to come from all over Australia, but the major challenge came from the venue itself. There was nothing remotely like a backstage area, the technical staff had a different boss to the set-up staff, and different again for the security staff, and everything had to be cleared for a precious hour while the Rods, Sergeants and Governors General did a ‘walk through’ for their more traditional part of the Opening. The proposed rehearsal dressing rooms were linked to the Cabinet suite, and they were suddenly not available due to meetings urgently required due to the assassination attempt on Jose Ramos-Horta. The dressing rooms for the performance would be on the second floor, near a lift that thankfully opened near the Great Hall, which would have to double as backstage. Timing would be tight since the ochre would have to be mopped from the floors, and the chairs removed, for the Governor General’s (actual) arrival for subsequent events. And finally, on the day itself, it rained.

As with farmers, rain is a very positive sign for Indigenous Australians, so the heavy showers on the morning of the 12th were welcome to both Matilda’s mob and the interstate dancers. Unfortunately, as Matilda was to ad lib in her speech, most houses leak, and the grand glass-domed roof of Parliament House was no exception. Thus a wet floor and black rubber mats under the worst leaks were just another challenge for our intrepid dancers.

On the day, the event surpassed all expectations.

Matilda House was stunningly regal in her traditional dress, and the words spoken by Matilda, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition had all the import of the past yet the promise of the future.

Both Matilda and the Prime Minister referred to the opening of Old Parliament House back in 1927, when Aboriginal Jimmy Clements, barefoot but in a well-worn suit, had walked from Tumut only to be turned away at first from the opening because of his inappropriate dress.

The songs of Djakapurra Munyarryun, best known for the opening of the 2000 Olympics, soared to the roof. The didgeridoos, drums and bird calls of Yirrkala, the Torres Strait, Cairns, Brisbane and Sydney gave the audience goose-bumps. As with the words of Matilda’s Welcome, the dignity of the dancers from around Australia brought tears to the watching eyes and the watching cameras to a frenzy. And the coolamon used to ‘darken’ the young dancer so she wouldn’t be stolen provided a poignant precursor to the gift of a contemporary glass coolamon to the Parliament by the Stolen Generations the next day.

One MP had suggested scathingly that the Welcome to Country would turn the Parliament into a ‘dance hall’. Well there was certainly dance, but the dance was a dance of celebration and welcome, and it was met with great applause by the audience.

This was also a dance of great symbolism and, combined with the solemnity and significance of the venue, this was not even a dance of theatres. This was a dance for the country, befitting of the national Parliament, the dance of a new national ceremony.

Not surprisingly, even the ‘dance hall’ politician couldn’t stay away, even if he did view the proceedings only briefly, and from the safety of the balcony above, for history was being made below.

When the 19 guns signalled the formal end to the opening of Parliament according to the old traditions, some dancers and musicians, and a barefoot queen in a possum cloak, had written a new tradition, a new Australian ceremony.

John Stanwell is a former director of ArtsACT. This article originally appeared in The Canberra Times on 23 February 2008, and is reproduced by permission of the author.