Return to search

Dreaming tracks : history of the Aboriginal Islander Skills Development Scheme, 1972-1979 : its place in the continuum

Dreaming Tracks was chosen for the title of this history because of its reference to the journeys and routes taken by the ancestral founders of each of the extended family clans. As they travelled they recorded the events and situations they encountered along the way , which they left in story, painting, song lines and dances for the future survival of their people. The history of the Aboriginal/Islander Skills Development Scheme also pertains to a journey. This journey records the events that brought about the establishment of the longest surviving, urban Indigenous dance organization. It's a voyage that identifies the obstacles and accomplishments of its founding members, who dedicated themselves to the hard work to ensure the continuum of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander dance. It was their dream, to have an Australian Black Dance Company that would create a link between past and present, traditional and urban. The pathways they created equipped urban Indigenous Australians with a unique dance identity of their own, and established the path to continued contact with the traditional owners. Dreaming Tracks is contemporary Dreaming lore that begins with the contention for land rights in the early 1970's and follows the progress of the Aboriginal/Islander Skills Development Scheme to the end of the decade. It records the desires, dreams and conflicts that brought this organization into being. In parallel, the concerns of the founder, Carole Y. Johnson, sets the path for the journey, which by the end of the twentieth-century witnessed the establishment of an accredited dance course, two dance companies (The Aboriginal/Islander Dance Theatre and Bangarra Dance Theatre, Australia) and students who are key participants in the artistic design of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney Australia / Master of Arts (Hons) (Performance)

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/235913
Date January 2000
CreatorsRobinson, Raymond Stanley, University of Western Sydney, Nepean, School of Social, Community and Organisational Studies
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
SourceTHESIS_XXX_SCOS_Robinson_R.xml

Page generated in 0.0017 seconds