INDIGENOUS STORYBOOK

Performing at the Zig Zag Festival
ourselves as a bridge, building relationships and trust
between all members of the community.
We named the choir Madjitil Moorna which means
‘magical sounds of movement in the bush’ in Noongar
language. We began by rehearsing at night from
6.30pm until 8.30pm to include working people
and children. People grew to love the songs and the
rehearsals. They provided an opportunity to come
together and share experiences with people from the
other side of the big divide between Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal Australians.
And then one day…
after three months of practice, we had our very first
choir performance at the Zig Zag festival. 32 people
of all ages and backgrounds performed. The public
was really wowed by our performance and we had
three separate invitations to sing at other events
across the metro area, which was very exciting for us.
So after a break, we rehearsed again and performed
at a private gig and two other festivals in early 2007.
The choir had such a positive response from the
community and we continued to receive more
invitations to perform. It all came together pretty
quickly and we realised that the choir could have a
viable, long-term future. 2007 saw us performing at
many different events including openings, festivals,
launches, corporate events and NAIDOC and
reconciliation events. It was a wonderful start for the
Madjitil Moorna choir and we gained a lot confidence
through this show of support. People were really
enjoying it and we absolutely loved singing our hearts
out - often in Aboriginal languages.
And because of that…
we were invited to sing Kerry Fletcher’s ‘Sorry
Song’ at the televised Parliamentary Apology to
Stolen Generations on 13 February, 2008. This was
an extremely moving occasion with thousands of
people in the Perth audience at 7.30am. Madjitil
Moorna swelled to 46 singers for this remarkable
event. Another extraordinary experience came in
2009. Doreen Green, an Elder and former teacher
of Halls Creek school, saw our choir perform at the
Chocolate Martini live series. Doreen then invited
us to Halls Creek to perform. We had a moordtj
team of people raising funds to get us there. 29
choir Madjitil Moorna people made it to this remote
Kimberley town on that first trip. At the end of a
week of rehearsals and activities, we hosted a free
community concert together for the town of Halls
Creek. Local musicians and bands filled out the
program and dozens of kids who had learnt our
songs during the week joined us on the stage to belt
them out! We had approximately 600 people at the
concert to support their kids. The town had never
seen anything like it before. (We counted the number
of people present by the number of sausages at the
BBQ!).
Mat de Koning, a young film-maker joined us to
document the trip and produced a video called
‘Harmony at Halls Creek’ which tells the story of
that amazing experience. After a second trip to
Halls Creek the following year, the community
organised their own Nguyuru Waaringarrem Music
Festival. Madjitil Moorna has made five trips to Halls
Creek and a song written by George Walley and
Halls Creek kids is firmly fixed in our schools song
set. Everyone loves the Halls Creek Rodeo Song.
See the music video at https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=7oZKblGQWaI
Early in 2015 we performed at a fantastic event with
one of our key Aboriginal musicians, George Walley,
“It’s very important to keep
culture alive through language and it’s
empowering for Aboriginal people to sing in
language.”
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