Lou Bennett | |
---|---|
Born | Cindy Louise Bennett Echuca, Victoria, Australia |
Genres | Indigenous Australian, blues, country |
Occupation(s) | musician, singer-songwriter, actor, writer, artistic director |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar |
Lou Bennett AM is an Indigenous Australian musician, actress and academic researching Aboriginal languages and their retrieval.
Bennett is a Yorta Yorta/Dja Dja Wurrung woman from Echuca, Victoria, Australia. [1] [2]
In October 2015 Bennett completed a PhD on Aboriginal language retrieval and reclamation at RMIT University. Her thesis was entitled "Sovereign Language Repatriation". [3]
Bennett started her musical career with her uncle's band "The Shades", before later joining Richard Frankland's band "Djaambi", where she met Sally Dastey and Amy Saunders—Bennett, Dastey and Saunders later formed the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) Award-winning band Tiddas.
After Tiddas disbanded in 2000, Bennett performed with a new band Sweet Cheeks and has worked as a stage actor—the latter has included an autobiographical show Show Us Your Tiddas! . [4] Show Us Your Tiddas! follows Bennett's life as she recounts a series of stories that include the occasion when she revealed her sexuality to her family, her first live performance, moving into an urban environment and her time with Tiddas. [5]
Bennett was a member of The Black Arm Band, for which she was an artistic director, composer, vocal supervisor and performer. [6] This included directing, arranging, and performing in Dirtsong , [7] both the world premiere at the 2009 Melbourne International Arts Festival and the second performance at the 2014 Adelaide Festival. [8] The songs were written by Alexis Wright, with some in Aboriginal languages. [9] [10]
Bennett also contributed vocals to the 2012 Australian film The Sapphires , following her involvement with the 2004 Melbourne stage production. [6] [11]
In 2017, Bennett was inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women. [12] She was invited by the University of New England to give the 2018 Frank Archibald Memorial Lecture. [3]
Her "significant service to the performing arts, particularly to music, and to the Indigenous community" was recognised by the award of Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in the 2019 Australia Day Honours. [13] At the 2023 Art Music Awards the artist won Performance of the Year: Notated Composition for nyernurnyarkur (to see, to hear) as performed by Omega Ensemble and Lou Bennett. [14] [15]
Archibald William Roach was an Australian singer-songwriter and Aboriginal activist. Often referred to as "Uncle Archie", Roach was a Gunditjmara and Bundjalung elder who campaigned for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. His wife and musical partner was the singer Ruby Hunter (1955–2010).
Paul Anthony Dempsey is an Australian musician. He is best known as the lead singer, guitarist and principal lyricist of rock group Something for Kate. Dempsey released his debut solo album, Everything Is True, on 20 August 2009, which peaked at No. 5 on the ARIA Albums Chart. He has also produced and co-written albums for other artists, including Mosman Alder.
Emma Donovan is an Aboriginal Australian singer and songwriter. She is a member of the renowned musical Donovan family. She started her singing career at age seven with her uncle's band, the Donovans. In 2000, she became a founding member of Stiff Gins, leaving the band three years later to release the solo album Changes in 2004. She performs with the Black Arm Band and released a solo EP, Ngaaraanga, in 2009.
Bartholomew Edwin Willoughby is an Aboriginal Australian musician, noted for his pioneering fusion of reggae with Indigenous Australian musical influences, and for his contribution to growth of Indigenous music in Australia. A multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and singer, he is known as a founder member and leader of the No Fixed Address, which was the first Aboriginal rock band in Australia, and the first Aboriginal band to travel overseas.
Tiddas were an all-female folk trio from Victoria, Australia.
Melbourne International Arts Festival, formerly Spoleto Festival Melbourne – Festival of the Three Worlds, then Melbourne International Festival of the Arts, becoming commonly known as Melbourne Festival, was a major international arts festival held in Melbourne, Australia, from 1986 to 2019. It was to be superseded by a new festival called Rising from 2020.
The Yorta Yorta, also known as Jotijota, are an Aboriginal Australian people who have traditionally inhabited the area surrounding the junction of the Goulburn and Murray Rivers in present-day north-eastern Victoria and southern New South Wales.
Cummeragunja Reserve or Cummeragunja Station, alternatively spelt Coomeroogunja, Coomeragunja, Cumeroogunga and Cummerguja, was a settlement on the New South Wales side of the Murray River, on the Victorian border near Barmah. It was also referred to as Cumeroogunga Mission, although it was not run by missionaries. The people were mostly Yorta Yorta.
Alexis Wright is a Waanyi writer best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel Carpentaria and for being the first writer to win the Stella Prize twice, in 2018 for her "collective memoir" of Leigh Bruce "Tracker" Tilmouth and in 2024 for Praiseworthy.Praiseworthy also won her the Miles Franklin Award in 2024, making her the first person to win the Stella Prize and Miles Franklin Award in the same year.
Djaambi were an urban rock band formed in 1989 by Richard Frankland (ex-Interaction) on lead vocals and saxophone, with both Aboriginal and white members. Initially a ten-piece, they had a variable line-up and sometimes had 15 performers. The word, djaambi, is "brother" in an Aboriginal language. The group released a self-titled album in 1990 and supported Prince on his Australian Tour in 1992.
Black Arm Band is an Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander music theatre organisation.
The Sapphires is an Australian play written by Tony Briggs and directed by Wesley Enoch. It is set in 1968 and it tells the story of The Sapphires, a singing group of four Yorta Yorta women who tour Vietnam during the war.
Rachael Zoa Maza, also credited as Rachael Maza Long, is an Indigenous Australian television and film actress, and stage director. She is known for her role in the 1998 film Radiance, and worked with Company B and Wesley Enoch in Sydney for many years. She has been artistic director and of Ilbijerri Theatre Company since 2008.
Show Us Your Tiddas! is a play written and performed by Lou Bennett and directed by Rachael Maza in 2007.
David Arden is an Australian singer-songwriter and Aboriginal activist. is a Kokatha and a Gunditjmara Songman. He has performed with Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter, Tiddas, Bart Willoughby, Mixed Relations and with members of Shane Howard, Paul Kelly, Not Drowning Waving and Hunters and Collectors. He was a founding a member and co Musical Director of The Black Arm Band.
Leah Flanagan is an Australian singer-songwriter and arts administrator from Darwin, Northern Territory. based in Sydney. She has released several albums and has toured Australia with her music and as a part of festival ensembles.
Genevieve Lacey is an Australian musician and recorder virtuoso, working as a performer, creator, curator and cultural leader. The practice of listening is central to her works, which are created collaboratively with artists from around the world. Lacey plays handmade recorders made by Joanne Saunders and Fred Morgan. In her collection, she also has instruments by David Coomber, Monika Musch, Michael Grinter, Paul Whinray and Herbert Paetzold.
Ilbijerri Theatre Company, formerly Ilbijerri Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Theatre Cooperative and also known simply as Ilbijerri, styled ILBIJERRI, is an Australian theatre company based in Melbourne that creates theatre creatively controlled by Indigenous artists.
Our Home, Our Land is a compilation album released in Australia by CAAMA in 1995. It was released to celebrate the victory in the Mabo case. It focused on the importance of land to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander beliefs. It was nominated for a 1996 ARIA Award for Best Indigenous Release.
Lethal By the Kilo is the third and final studio album by Australian three-piece folk group Tiddas. The album was released in October 1998 and supported the released with a national tour. The album was nominated for Album of the Year at the Deadly Awards 1999. The group recorded a live album in 1999 and disbanded in May 2000.
Dr Bennett's project, Sovereign Language Repatriation (SLR) examines the importance of Indigenous research methods and practice-led research to the task of 'repatriating' Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.