Using Birdwood Downs Station as our base, we pop down the road to attend the festive charm of a low key dance event by the three main local Indigenous groups. Bring your own chairs. No checking of tickets. The announcers adlib at will, toddlers roam the sand circle, politicians address and honour welcome to country declarations.
The singers and clapstick players herald the warm up dances where brightly painted dancers stomp up dust and shout.
The Brahman dance follows with a gargantuan, mixed race man with a whip herding a group of cattle portrayed by young boys wearing cardboard horns.
Next is an airplane dance to commemorate the loss of a plane in a thunderstorm in the 1950s. Dancers holding lightning props jiggle around two wildly careening airplane icons held aloft. One plane is the ill fated aircraft, the other is a Twin Otter sent to search for the downed plane.
Another dance depicts ibises with long bills pecking morsels off the ground.
More dances follow.
The grand finale dance features the guiding spirit, Wandjinas, in a whirl of stomping men and shuffling women.
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Derby, Mowanjum Festival, Aboriginal Festival, Western Australia
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