From California to Australia


The first southern hemisphere event took place as part of the Darwin Fringe Festival on 24 July 2016. The event ran from 5:30-7pm at Brown’s Mart in Darwin City. There were roughly 70 people in attendance.

For the first time, Steven Bird of the Aikuma Project took on the emcee role and continued the format developed with Nadia Chaney for our first two events, which included the goal of the evening of celebrating and connecting. He also ran through four agreements, with less emphasis on the creative risk activity with the audience. Steven recognised the Larrakia land we were standing on, and the reality that, as Vince Medina articulated at our first show, the land we were standing on doesn’t hear its original language spoken anymore. The program continued with five stories in original languages, with some form of summarised or complete translation into English. Stories in Shona (Zimbabwe), Ma’di (Sudan), Bahasa Malay (Malaysia), Japanese, and Djambarrpuynu (Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia) constituted the program. Several included morals and some conceptual interpretation by the storyteller about the cultural meaning of the story.

Some of the audience questions probed the context in which the storyteller learned the story, which led the storytellers to share more personal anecdotes. Robyn spoke briefly about the motivation behind the Aikuma Project. There was no panel or conversation cafe this time.

A key challenge in getting established in a new location was to recruit storytellers. Steven met John, our opening storyteller, only two weeks before the show. John was helping his wife run a ZImbabwean stall at a local market. Steven met Clement at a citizenship ceremony held in the nearby town of Palmerston on World Refugee Day. In both places we were running hourly impromptu storytelling shows in a nearby community room, and enticed people to come and share stories, inviting some of them to participate in our show. This method of recruitment made it easier for potential participants to understand what would be involved.

Some of our take-aways from the show, based on storyteller and audience feedback, are as follows:

  1. Storytellers would like to use props

  2. Audience wants more personal stories

  3. Storytellers want to connect more with each other

  4. Getting familiar with venue is good for storytellers

  5. They could support each other more in terms of rehearsal and emotional support if we create more opportunities for them to be together.

–Robyn Perry

The Details

Where: Browns Mart Theatre, Darwin
When: 24 July, 2016
Format: Part of Darwin Fringe Festival
Storytellers: John Nyamusara, Shona (Zimbabwe); Zarina Haakmeester, Malay (Malaysia); Clement Taban, Ma’di (South Sudan); Mio Ito and Sachi Hirayama, Japanese; Maratja Dhamarrandji, Djambarrpuyŋu (Australia).
Production: Steven Bird, Robyn Perry
Photography: Nitesh Pant, Cathy Bow, Steven Bird
Program: pdf


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The backstory: Finding storytellers

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Oakland: International Mother Language Day 2016