Ebony stepped out on stage to greet a sea of familiar faces. Before she could speak, however, she choked up. Tears came. Despite spending her whole life in Shepparton, she’d never used her ancestral language in a public performance:

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"I started off with a Welcome to Country in Yorta Yorta. I got very emotional through that.

Inspired by the success of our all-women’s show in Oakland in 2016, we decided to have another one, playing on the idea of “Mother Language” for International Mother Language Day. This was our first time to try an outside venue, since we hoped to be able to have stories around a real fire. In the end we were unable to get a permit for a fire, and used a ring of flares instead, surrounding us with fire.

This was a show like no other! The Yolŋu community of Darwin turned out in their numbers. Even homeless people in the Civic Park who saw their countrymen arriving at the theatre for our dress rehearsal joined in and remained on stage for the duration of the show. In the final dance, which we had not programmed, they invited the audience on stage as well, and we danced out of the theatre.

We opened with drumming, and a call delivered in the Ewe language of Togo and Ghana: Miale bena miafe Dekonuwo ~ Keep our culture strong! After a brief introduction, two Aboriginal storytellers took to the stage. As with all our previous storytellers this was a new experience for them, and they had to summon all their courage to open our show!

Naarm / Melbourne is known as a highly culturally diverse city, and it was easy to find storytellers who were game to try our new storytelling format. We met in the Old Council Chambers, a room with horse-shoe seating arrangement with a long history as a place of holding important stories. We were welcomed by Mandy Nicholson, who gave a dramatic welcome to country in Woiwurrung, the original language of Melbourne and the Yarra Valley.

Our second Darwin show illustrates our efforts at reaching out to three local organisations. Here is the back-story. It began with a feedback from from our previous show, three months earlier.

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.

On International Mother Language Day (Sunday 21 February 2016), approximately 100 people gathered at the Awaken Cafe in Oakland for an afternoon of storytelling.

Given the accidental all-male line up of our inaugural event, this show consisted of female storytellers, all currently living in the San Francisco East Bay.

On Sunday 13 December 2015, approximately 65 people representing the Tigrigna, Iu Mien, and Chochenyo languages, plus members of the wider community, gathered at the New Parkway Theater in Oakland for an evening of “treasure language storytelling”. This page contains videos from our evening together.