Descendance (Descendance Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Dance Theatre), previously known as the Ngaru Dancers, [1] is an Australian Aboriginal dance company formed in 1999.
They have performed internationally [2] [3] and won first prize in the dance category at the first cultural Olympics, World Culture Open. [4]
Aden Derek Ridgeway is a former Australian politician. He was a member of the Australian Senate for New South Wales from 1999 to 2005, representing the Australian Democrats. During his term he was the only Aboriginal member of the Australian Parliament. He is currently a spokesperson for Recognise, the movement to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait peoples in the Australian Constitution.
The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) (1990–2005) was the Australian Government body through which Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders were formally involved in the processes of government affecting their lives. A number of Indigenous programs and organisations fell under the overall umbrella of ATSIC.
Torres Strait Islanders are the Indigenous peoples of the Torres Strait Islands, which are part of the state of Queensland, Australia. Ethnically distinct from the Aboriginal people of the rest of Australia, they are often grouped with them as Indigenous Australians. Today there are many more Torres Strait Islander people living in mainland Australia than on the Islands.
The Mabuiag, or Mabuygiwgal, are an Indigenous Australian group of Torres Strait Islander people united by a common language, strong ties of kinship and survived as skilled hunter–fisher–gatherers in family groups or clans living on a number of Torres Strait Islands including Mabuiag Island, in the Torres Strait in Queensland, Australia. They are ethnically Melanesian.
The second part of the 1967 Australian referendum related to Aboriginal people. The 1967 Australian referendum, called by the Holt Government on 27 May 1967, consisted of two parts, with the first question relating to Aboriginal Australians. It asked for approval for two amendments to the Australian constitution based on this second question. The amendments related to counting Aboriginal people in the Australian census, and allowing the government to legislate separately for Aboriginal people. Technically this referendum question was a vote on the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginals) Act 1967, which became law on 10 August 1967 following the results of the referendum.
The Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) is an independent Australian Government statutory authority. It is a collecting, publishing and research institute and is considered to be Australia's premier resource for information about the cultures and societies of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. The Institute is a leader in ethical research and the handling of culturally sensitive material and holds in its collections many unique and irreplaceable items of cultural, historical and spiritual significance. The collection at AIATSIS has been built through over 50 years of research and engagement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and is now a source of language and culture revitalisation, native title research and family and community history. AIATSIS is located on Acton Peninsula in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.
Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Islands.
The Torres Strait Islander Flag is an official flag of Australia, and is the flag that represents Torres Strait Islander people. It was designed in 1992 by Bernard Namok. It won a local competition held by the Islands Coordinating Council, and was recognised by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission in June 1992.
Henry Gibson "Seaman" Dan, known as Seaman Dan, an Indigenous Australian, is a Torres Strait Islander singer-songwriter with a national and international reputation whose first recording was released in 2000. His album Perfect Pearl won him an ARIA award for Best World Music Album in 2004 and in 2009 won again with Sailing Home. In 2014 at the age of 85 he released A Caribbean Songbook, his tribute to the music of the West Indies. In 2016 at the age of 87 he released An Old Man of the Sea, which was a finalist for an ARIA Award in the World Music category.
Michael James "Mick" Dodson is an Indigenous Australian barrister, academic, and member of the Yawuru peoples in the Broome area of the southern Kimberley region of Western Australia.
Ceremonial dancing has a very important place in the Indigenous cultures of Australia. They vary from place to place, but most ceremonies combine dance, song, rituals and often elaborate body decorations and costumes. The different body paintings indicate the type of ceremony being performed. They play an important role in marriage ceremonies, in the education of Indigenous children, as well as story telling and oral history. The term corroboree is commonly used to refer to Australian Aboriginal dances, although this term has its origins among the people of the Sydney region. In some places, Aboriginal people perform corroborees for tourists. In the latter part of the 20th century the influence of Indigenous Australian dance traditions has been seen with the development of concert dance, with the Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts (ACPA) providing training in contemporary dance.
Australians are people associated with the country of Australia, usually holding Australian citizenship. Australia is a multicultural society and has the world's ninth-largest immigrant population, with immigrants accounting for 29 percent of the population as of 2017.
Indigenous Australians are people who are descended from groups that lived in Australia and surrounding islands before British colonisation. They include the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia. The term Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is preferred by many; First Nations of Australia, First Peoples of Australia and First Australians are also increasingly common terms.
Linda Yunkata Syddick Napaltjarri is a Pintupi- and Pitjantjatjara- speaking Indigenous artist from Australia's Western Desert region. Her father was killed when she was young; her mother later married Shorty Lungkarta Tjungarrayi, an artist whose work was a significant influence on Linda Syddick's painting.
Indigenous Australians are both convicted of crimes and imprisoned at a disproportionately high rate in Australia, as well as being over-represented as victims of crime. The issue is a complex one, to which federal and state governments as well as Indigenous groups have responded with various analyses and numerous programs and measures. As of September 2019, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners represented 28% of the total adult prisoner population, while accounting for 3.3% of the general population.
Hetti Kemerre Perkins is an art curator and writer. She is the eldest daughter of Australian Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins and German Eileen Munchenberg, a granddaughter of Hetty Perkins, sister to film director Rachel Perkins and brother Adam Perkins and a mother to actress Madeleine Madden. Hetti Perkins is an Eastern Arrernte and Kalkadoon woman from Central Australia, she attended Melrose High School in Canberra, with her sister.
Indigenous health in Australia examines health and wellbeing indicators of Indigenous Australians compared with the rest of the population. Statistics indicate that Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders are much less healthy than other Australians. Various government strategies have been put into place to try to remediate the problem; there has been some improvement in several areas, but statistics between Indigenous Australians and the rest of the Australian population still show unacceptable levels of difference.
Ilbijerri Theatre Company is an Australian theatre company based in Melbourne that creates theatre creatively controlled by Indigenous artists.
The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), founded in Adelaide, South Australia as the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA) on 16 February 1958, was a civil rights organisation which campaigned for the welfare of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, and the first national body representing Aboriginal interests. It was influential in lobbying in favour of the 1967 Referendum on Aboriginal Australians, before being renamed and split in two in 1970.
Saibo Mabo was an Australian bishop in the Anglican Church of Australia. He served as an assistant bishop in the Anglican Diocese of North Queensland from 2002 to 2015, and as National Bishop to the Torres Strait Islander people during that time.
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