Mandaboornap Dreaming Puppet Performance 2017

About the Project

The Mandaboornap project involved a week of community consultation in November 2016 with facilitating puppet artist Karen Hethey, followed by three weeks of community workshops from Jan 9th – 29th 2017. Hethey worked closely with Jennell Reynolds and more than 100 other community members to build two giant eagle puppets, 4 smaller puppet ‘people’, and many, many seagull, over 18 full-day workshops located at Nulsen Primary School. Hethey returned to Esperance on February 27th to begin 2.5 weeks of rehearsals with the community in preparation for the performance on March 16th, which was presented on the Esperance Foreshore as part of the opening of the 2017 Festival of the Wind.

Around 160 people participated directly in the project over 5 months. It created opportunities for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community members to work together in new ways and engaged a significant number of Aboriginal participants of all ages, including individuals from all six families of native title holders. Most of these community members had not previously been involved in local arts events.

We estimate that around 2500 people attended the event. There has been very limited public acknowledgment of Aboriginal cultures in Esperance previously, and this level of interest from the non-Aboriginal community was a very positive surprise to some of the Aboriginal participants, who were only expecting a small audience of family and friends. The overall community response to this very special public arts event was incredibly positive. It was an excellent partnership between Esperance Community Arts, the Esperance Nyungar Community, Seawater Families, Escare Incorporated, Nulsen Primary School and the Festival of the Wind. A DVD of the recording of the 25 minute performance will be posted to CAWA.

Annie Dabb, one of the traditional owners for the area, said that the Puppet project has given the Mandaboornap story

“…recognition. Culturally, [the project] has told the story really well, it highlighted the story that needed to be told to the wider public, and I think they will find that very interesting, that there are Aboriginal stories down here, language down here and songs that are down here, the song-lines. It was a bit of culture that we gave to the wider community. There were over 2000 people who ended up coming to see the performance that night and I think that they got a really good education as well out of the performance. It is very important [to pass on the story to the next generations]. It is also keeping our ancestors alive as we tell the stories to our children and grandchildren, it is keeping their memories alive, and showing them that this is their country, where they lived, where they walked and what songs they sang…”

Colleen Frost, one of the Aboriginal facilitators who worked on the Mandaboornap Puppet Project, felt that it

“… has bought a lot of community members together… it gave me the chance to get to know other community members… I knew the story before but I didn’t have the chance to tell my kids until we got the chance to perform it … [I would rate the performance as] 10 out 10 and I would like to see something else, another story, a local story, done again… [I would] definitely be a part of it, would make sure my kids were a part of it and would try to get everyone else involved ”.

Haley, a local Aboriginal participant, felt that the performance was good for the Esperance community because it “opened their eyes up about culture …”

This project is funded by a CAN WA Catalyst grant and by LotteryWest.

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