There were impassioned, heated discussions when we learnt that our invite to this English music festival had a dark back story. Had we known that the festival was intertwined with the 200th anniversary of the First Fleet’s departure for Botany Bay, it was agreed Aboriginal Australians had nothing to celebrate and would have unequivocally declined the invitation.
As it was, the Bararoga Dancers, from Maningrida, in Central Arnhem Land, were in Portsmouth and they collectively felt it would cause ‘shame’ if they pulled out, at this late stage. Not so other Indigenous participants, who went to the national media to protest the sleight-of-hand. They withdrew their exhibition pieces. There were demonstrations, one or two people were arrested.
Robinson Gurdal, lead dancer and I were at Peggy Sue’s, a bar close to Portsmouth’s historic blue water harbour. We were on a promotional tour, outlining Australia’s Northern Territory touring options. The other dance members had retired an hour earlier.
Robinson’s estates were within the ‘Stone Country’, that huge expanse of heavily eroded sandstone outliers, caverned overhangs and deep gorges in central Arnhem Land. He had responsibilities for the well-being of this country, learned from his elders, and with their permission, had brought to the Portsmouth Music Festival several of the ‘open’ stories relating to the Mimih spirits that shared his country.
These clever spirits, occasionally called bogeymen, were sometimes used to temper children’s evening overexuberance. But for the elders, these nighttime wanderers’ influence was all-pervasive. The Mimih instructed on issues of behaviour, lore, aspects of ceremonial obligation, dance styles and were known to inflict punishments for cultural misdemeanours.
They could also offer a whimsical, benevolent face and in this guise, statues were regularly carved from the wood of a local tree, to feature in ritual performance, or sometimes gifted, as appropriate, as an act of reconciliation between warring parties.
Robinson had been chosen to carry the group’s Mimih in tomorrow’s performance. The Queen of England would be presented with the figurine, in some dyslexic, choreographic lunacy, maybe as some sort of Indigenous forgiveness against the impacts of colonial dispossession!
The Bararoga Mimih Dancers entertained the crowd, overseen from on high by Queen Elizabeth. The performance ended and Robinson, with the statue settled across his outstretched arms, proceeded to climb up towards the Queen. The crowd fell silent; he climbed higher.
Two steps from the top, he tripped. The wooden figurine arced high and gently came down close enough to topple Elizabeth’s hat, causing it to tumble onto her lap. Gasps from the crowd below, an Equerry quickly secured and reset the headpiece: the Monarch and the dancer quietly eyed each other.
I am reliably informed Robinson mumbled “Sorry Queenie”. From my vantage, I saw her smile, her hand briefly, involuntarily extended, and Robinson retraced his steps.
The press captured the moment and carried an obliquely snapped picture of the Mimih coming down across what appeared to be the Queen’s head. The Times’ headline posed ‘Is this a defiant act of retribution, or reconciliation?’