The Dreamers is a play written by Jack Davis, set in Western Australia. [1] He wrote the play to influence public opinion and bring about improvement in Aboriginal Australians' lives. [2]
The play features the following characters:
The play is about how Aboriginal family, the Wallitches, go through everyday life. The story takes place over a period of six months in the home of the family. [1]
The play maintains an elegiac tone throughout for a tribal past, for a people one physically and spiritually in harmony with their world. [ citation needed ]
It was first performed on 2 February 1982 by the Swan River Stage Company at the Dolphin Theatre in Perth. [1] Although first performed in 1982, the play is contemporary and can be understood in a current context. The play continues to be restaged by a range of companies, particularly companies with an indigenous focus. [3]
Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actress, author, businesswoman and humanitarian, known primarily for her work in country music. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton made her album debut in 1967 with Hello, I'm Dolly, which led to success during the remainder of the 1960s, before her sales and chart peak came during the 1970s and continued into the 1980s. Parton's albums in the 1990s did not sell as well, but she achieved commercial success again in the new millennium and has released albums on various independent labels since 2000, including her own label, Dolly Records. She has sold more than 100 million records worldwide.
The Noongar are Aboriginal Australian peoples who live in the south-west corner of Western Australia, from Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast. Noongar country is the land occupied by 14 different groups: Amangu, Ballardong, Yued, Kaneang, Koreng, Mineng, Njakinjaki, Njunga, Pibelmen, Pindjarup, Wadandi, Whadjuk, Wiilman and Wudjari.
David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu, known professionally as David Gulpilil and posthumously for cultural reasons as David Dalaithngu for three days, was an Australian actor and dancer, known for the films Walkabout, Storm Boy, Rabbit-Proof Fence, and The Tracker.
Tantoo Cardinal, CM is a Canadian film and television actress. In 2009, she was made a member of the Order of Canada "for her contributions to the growth and development of Aboriginal performing arts in Canada, as a screen and stage actress, and as a founding member of the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company."
Jack Leonard Davis was an Australian 20th-century Aboriginal playwright, poet and Indigenous activist. Academic Adam Shoemaker, who has covered much of Jack Davis‘ work and Aboriginal literature, has claimed he was one of “Australia’s most influential Aboriginal authors”. He was born in Perth, Western Australia, where he spent most of his life and later died. He identified with the Western Australian Nyoongah tribe, also spelt Noongar, and he included some of this language into his plays. In conjunction with Davis’ use of his native language, academics have inferred that his work includes themes of Aboriginality and Aboriginalism. These literary concepts are used to communicate the relationship between cultures.
No Sugar is a postcolonial play written by Indigenous Australian playwright Jack Davis, set during the Great Depression, in Northam, Western Australia, Moore River Native Settlement and Perth. The play focuses on the Millimurras, an Australian Aboriginal family, and their attempts at subsistence.
Coloured Stone is an Aboriginal Australian band whose members originate from the Koonibba Mission, west of Ceduna, South Australia. The band performs using guitar, bass, drums, and Aboriginal instruments – didjeridu, bundawuthada and clap sticks – to play traditional music.
Ruby Charlotte Margaret Hunter was an Aboriginal Australian singer, songwriter and guitarist. She was a Ngarrindjeri woman, who often performed with her partner, Archie Roach AM, whom she met at the age of 16, while both were homeless teenagers. Born near the mouth of the Murray River in the Coorong region of South Australia, Hunter was forcibly taken from her family at the age of eight as part of the Stolen Generation.
Marina Prior is an Australian soprano and actress with a career mainly in musical theatre. From 1990 to 1993, she starred as the original Christine Daaé in the Australian premiere of The Phantom of the Opera, opposite Anthony Warlow and later Rob Guest.
Wesley James Enoch is an Australian playwright and artistic director. He is especially known for The 7 Stages of Grieving, co-written with Deborah Mailman. He was artistic director of the Queensland Theatre Company from mid-2010 until October 2015, and completed a five-year stint as director of the Sydney Festival in February 2021.
Dr Richard Barry Walley OAM is a Nyungar man, one of Australia's leading Aboriginal performers, musicians and writers, who has been a campaigner for the Indigenous cause. He is known for originating the modern Australian welcome to country ritual. Walley is also a visual artist, with his works in much demand by collectors in Australia and overseas.
"Jolene" is a song written and performed by American country music artist Dolly Parton. It was produced by Bob Ferguson and recorded at RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee on May 22, 1973. It was released on October 15, 1973, by RCA Victor, as the first single and title track from her album of the same name.
Maurice Joseph Rioli, Sr. was an Australian rules footballer who represented St Mary's Football Club in the Northern Territory Football League (NTFL), South Fremantle in the West Australian Football League (WAFL) and Richmond in the Victorian Football League.
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, commonly known as Gurrumul and also referred to since his death as Dr G. Yunupingu, was an Aboriginal Australian musician of the Yolŋu peoples. A multi-instrumentalist, he played drums, keyboards, guitar and didgeridoo, but it was the clarity of his singing voice that attracted rave reviews. He sang stories of his land both in Yolŋu languages such as Gaalpu, Gumatj or Djambarrpuynu, a dialect related to Gumatj, and in English. Although his solo career brought him wider acclaim, he was also formerly a member of Yothu Yindi and later of Saltwater Band. He was the most commercially successful Aboriginal Australian musician at the time of his death. As of 2020, it is estimated that Yunupingu has sold half a million records globally.
Rachael Zoa Maza is an Indigenous Australian television and film actress and stage director.
Ryan Sheridan is an Irish singer, songwriter and guitarist from County Monaghan.
The Cake Man is a 1975 play by Aboriginal Australian writer Bob Merritt, notable for being the first play written by an Indigenous Australian person to be published, televised and to tour out of Australia. A telemovie was made of a 1977 performance of the play. The Aboriginal Theatre Company was formed by Bob Merritt and Brian Syron especially to produce the play for a tour to the United States in 1982.
Child sexual abuse is a matter of concern in Australia, and is the subject of investigation and prosecution under the law, and of academic study into the prevalence, causes and social implications.
Bruce Pascoe is an Aboriginal Australian writer of literary fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays and children's literature. As well as his own name, Pascoe has written under the pen names Murray Gray and Leopold Glass. Since August 2020, he has been Enterprise Professor in Indigenous Agriculture at the University of Melbourne.
Robert James Merritt, known as Bob Merritt or Bobby Merritt and credited as Robert J. Merritt, was an Aboriginal Australian writer and activist. He is especially known for his play The Cake Man, and for founding the Eora Centre for the Visual and Performing Arts.