Trevor Jamieson | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 7 March 1975 Subiaco, Western Australia, Australia |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Relatives | Natasha Wanganeen (cousin) |
| Awards | Deadly Awards 2008: Most Outstanding Achievement in Film, TV or Theatre for Ngapartji Ngapartji Sydney Theatre Awards 2008, Best Actor in a Lead Role 2008 |
Trevor Jamieson (born 7 March 1975) is an Aboriginal Australian stage and film actor, playwright, dancer, singer and didgeridoo player.
Trevor Jamieson was born on 7 March 1975 in Subiaco, Western Australia (WA). [1] [2]
He grew up in the Western Australian Goldfields region, mostly around Kalgoorlie, Esperance,Norseman, but his people are mostly of the Central Desert, in particular Nullarbor and Maralinga. He has links to Pitjantjara (on his father's side [3] ), Kukatja, and other groups, including the Noongar peoples of south-western WA [4] (on his mother's side). His mother was removed from his grandmother by missionaries soon after birth, so as a child he learnt more about his father's side. His father and his grandfather were policemen. [3]
His aunt, Lynette Markle, is the niece of playwright Jack Davis, so he was exposed to drama at an early age, and enjoyed being in a play at school. Thinking about signing up as a constable at the end of 1992, Markle persuaded him to go for an audition, which led to the first step in his career - a role in the stage musical Bran Nue Dae , which toured nationally. [3]
He is a cousin of South Australian actress Natasha Wanganeen [5] and an uncle of actor Clarence Ryan, [6] whom he met while filming Lockie Leonard where they play father and son.
Jamieson is an actor, [7] dancer, [8] singer, [4] playwright, [9] and didgeridoo player. [1]
Jamieson's first stage performance was in the touring producing of Bran Nue Dae [3] in 1993. In 1994 he acted in Wild Cat Falling at the Downstairs Theatre at the Belvoir in Sydney. [10] In 1996 he was in Corrugation Road , another musical by Jimmy Chi, this time set in a mental hospital. [11]
He co-wrote The Career Highlights of the MAMU with Scott Rankin, staged in 2002. [12] This was a dramatisation of the impact of the British nuclear testing at Maralinga, South Australia between 1956 and 1963 on the Indigenous Australians in the region, who were known as the Spinifex people. A video recording was made of the production performed by Black Swan Theatre Company at the Kampnagel theatre in Hamburg, Germany in August 2002. [9] The play was directed by Andrew Ross of Black Swan, and performed at the 2002 Adelaide Festival and the Octagon Theatre at the University of Western Australia (UWA) in May–June 2002, before touring to Mandurah, Margaret River, and Esperance. [12]
He was co-creator of Ngapartji Ngapartji , with Big hART's creative director Scott Rankin. [13] This was a language revitalisation and community development project started in 2005 and which developed into a stage performance as an offshoot. In the theatrical production, Jamieson narrates his family's story. [13] It was performed at the Sydney Opera House [14] and evolved over the years, with performances around the country with changes of cast and script.Ngapartji Ngapartji has toured Australia extensively in between 2005 and 2008 with the show undergoing various developments throughout its production history. In 2012, the show was revived in Canberra in a condensed version under the name Ngapartji Ngapartji One, but Jamieson was not in the cast that year as he was touring with another Big hART production, Namatjira . [15]
In 2012–13 Jamieson played the artist Albert Namatjira in Namatjira, in a performance that was another offshoot of a community project by Big hART, written and directed by Scott Rankin. The play was seen by over 48,000 Australians at its performances at Belvoir and Riverside Theatre Parramatta (Sydney), Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne, and many other theatres on its regional tour of New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, before touring to London, where it played at the Southbank Centre in November. The play won the 2012 Helpmann Award for Best Regional Touring Production. [7]
In 2013 he took the role of Fingerbone Bill in a stage production of Storm Boy by Barking Gecko Theatre Company and Sydney Theatre Company, based on the 1964 novel by Colin Thiele. [16] [3]
In 2014, Jamieson worked with the Black Arm Band theatre company in a musical theatre production called Dirtsong [17] which closed the 2014 Adelaide Festival on 16 March 2014. [18] The performers, who included Jamieson, Archie Roach, Lou Bennett, Emma Donovan and many other singers and musicians, sang songs with lyrics by writer Alexis Wright, with some sung in Aboriginal languages. [19] The performance included both contemporary and traditional songs, and had premiered five years earlier at the 2009 Melbourne International Arts Festival, with Jamieson not in the original cast. [20]
In 2016, Jamieson participated in a multicultural dance presentation, along with Indian dancers Isha Shavani and Tao Issaro, other Aboriginal dancers, and Maori dancers. The performance was called Kaya, meaning "hello", and it toured regional WA, including Kalgoorlie, before premiering in Perth at the Dolphin Theatre at UWA. [21]
In May 2022 Jamieson played Dugald in a revival of the opera Voss , a co-production by State Opera South Australia and Victorian Opera. [22] Originally scheduled to be performed in Melbourne in August 2021, [23] owing to a COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, the season was cancelled and rescheduled to a single performance at the Adelaide Festival Theatre. [24] The production was well-reviewed, with two critics giving it four out of five stars. [25] [23]
Jameieson acted in the 2013 and 2016 productions of Andrew Bovell's The Secret River . [10] For the 2017 production at Anstey Hill Quarry for the Adelaide Festival, he arranged the music. The co-production of the State Theatre Company of South Australia and the Sydney Theatre Company, co-directed by Neil Armfield and Geordie Brookman. [26] was a record-breaking success, playing to full houses over 18 nights. [27]
Jamieson's performance in Jada Alberts' Brothers Wreck (2016) was praised. [28] [29] The topic (Indigenous youth suicide) was one for which Jamieson could draw on his own life experiences. [30]
In 2009, an episode of Message Stick on ABC Television, called "Spinifex Man", was aired. Filmmaker Allan Collins talks to Jamieson about his life and work in the program. [2]
Jamieson portrayed Fingerbone Bill in the 2019 film Storm Boy , released on 17 January 2019. [16] He loved the 1976 film and especially idolised David Gulpilil (who played Fingerbone Bill), so playing the character in both the stage version in 2013 and this film was a dream come true for him. He consulted Ngarrindjeri / Kaurna elder Moogy Sumner on the singing, dancing, and other cultural protocols, and worked with a Ngarrindjeri linguist to get the language right, as he was representing Ngarrindjeri people in the film, which was shot on Ngarrindjeri country. [31] [lower-alpha 1] [3]
In 2021, Jamieson was an ambassador for the Revelation Perth International Film Festival. [1]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Rabbit-Proof Fence | Moore River Policeman | Feature film |
| 2006 | Weewar | Weewar | Short film |
| 2007 | Done Dirt Cheap | Amos | Short film |
| 2009 | 3 Acts of Murder | Lary Dooley | TV movie |
| 2009 | Bran Nue Dae | Roebuck Hotel Dancer / Listen to the News Dancer | Feature film |
| 2013 | Around the Block | Uncle Rex | Feature film |
| 2016 | Boys in the Trees | Man in white | Feature film |
| 2018 | Kwongkan Sand | Elder | Feature film |
| 2018 | Yulubidyi - Until The End | Thunder / Mamu | Short film |
| 2018 | Thalu: Dreamtime is Now | Mingkala (voice) | Feature film |
| 2019 | Storm Boy | Fingerbone Bill | Feature film |
| 2019 | A Small Punch in a Little Town | Warragul | Feature film [31] |
| 2023 | Run Rabbit Run | Sandy | Feature film |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | Heartland | Nobby | 2 episodes |
| 1998 | Kings in Grass Castles | Boontamurra Youth | Miniseries 2 episodes |
| 2009 | The Circuit | Bill | 1 episode [33] |
| 2007-2010 | Lockie Leonard | Rev. Egg | 36 episodes [3] |
| 2011 | My Place | Father | 1 episode |
| 2015 | The Secret River | Grey Beard (Gumang) | Miniseries, 2 episodes [3] |
| 2016 | Cleverman | Uncle Max | 5 episodes [3] |
| 2018 | Black Comedy | Guest cast | 5 episodes |
| Year | Title | Award | Category | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | Ngapartji Ngapartji | Sydney Theatre Awards | Best Actor in a Lead Role | Won [35] |
| 2008 | Ngapartji Ngapartji | Sydney Theatre Awards | Best Mainstage Production | Nominated |
| 2008 | Ngapartji Ngapartji | Deadly Awards 2008 | Most Outstanding Achievement in Film, TV and Theatre | Won [13] |
| 2008 | Ngapartji Ngapartji | Deadly Awards 2008 | Best Script | Nominated |
| 2010 | Namatjira | Sydney Theatre Awards | Best Leading Man | Nominated [1] |
| 2020 | Ayaan | South Australian Screen Awards | Best Male Performance | Won |
| 2020 | Ayaan | St Kilda Short Film Festival | Best Actor | Nominated |
| 2021 | A Small Punch in a Littie Town | Northern Virginia International Film & Music Festival | Festival Award for Best Acting Ensemble | Nominated |
| 2021 | A Small Punch in a Littie Town | Hollywood Dreamz International Film Festival | Outstanding Cast Performance Feature | Nominated |
The Pila Nguru, often referred to in English as the Spinifex people, are an Aboriginal Australian people of Western Australia, whose lands extend to the border with South Australia and to the north of the Nullarbor Plain. The centre of their homeland is in the Great Victoria Desert, at Tjuntjunjarra, some 700 kilometres (430 mi) east of Kalgoorlie, perhaps the remotest community in Australia. Their country is sometimes referred to as Spinifex country. The Pila Nguru were the last Australian people to have dropped the complete trappings of their traditional lifestyle.
Storm Boy is a 1964 Australian children's novel written by Colin Thiele, about a boy and his pelican. The story, set in the Coorong region of South Australia, focuses on the relationships the boy has with his father Hide-Away Tom, the pelican, and an outcast Australian Aboriginal man called Fingerbone.
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.
James David Sharman is an Australian director and writer for film and stage with more than 70 productions to his credit. He is renowned in Australia for his work as a theatre director since the 1960s, and is best known internationally as the director of the 1973 theatrical hit The Rocky Horror Show, its film adaptation The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and the film's follow-up, Shock Treatment (1981).
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 Arts in Australia refers to the visual arts, literature, performing arts and music in the area of, on the subject of, or by the people of the Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding Indigenous and colonial societies. Indigenous Australian art, music and story telling attaches to a 40–60,000-year heritage and continues to affect the broader arts and culture of Australia. During its early western history, Australia was a collection of British colonies, therefore, its literary, visual and theatrical traditions began with strong links to the broader traditions of English and Irish literature, British art and English and Celtic music. However, the works of Australian artists – including Indigenous as well as Anglo-Celtic and multicultural migrant Australians – has, since 1788, introduced the character of a new continent to the global arts scene – exploring such themes as Aboriginality, Australian landscape, migrant and national identity, distance from other Western nations and proximity to Asia, the complexities of urban living and the "beauty and the terror" of life in the Australian bush.
Theatre of Australia refers to the history of the live performing arts in Australia: performed, written or produced by Australians.
Alexis Wright is a Waanyi writer best known for winning the Miles Franklin Award for her 2006 novel Carpentaria and the 2018 Stella Prize for her "collective memoir" of Leigh Bruce "Tracker" Tilmouth.
Garry Stewart is an Australian dancer and choreographer. He was the longest-serving artistic director of the Australian Dance Theatre, taking over from Meryl Tankard in 1999 and finishing his term at the end of 2021. He is renowned for his unusual, post-modern interpretations of classical ballets.
Voss is an opera by Australian composer Richard Meale with libretto by David Malouf. It is an adaptation of Patrick White's novel of the same name. The opera was commissioned by The Australian Opera, and premiered at the Adelaide Festival in 1986. It was reprised in Adelaide in 2022, in a co-production by State Opera South Australia and Victorian Opera.
Black Arm Band is an Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander music theatre organisation.
Lou Bennett is an Indigenous Australian musician, actress and academic researching Aboriginal languages and their retrieval.
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The Namatjira Project is an Australian community cultural development project, launched in 2009, conducted by arts and social change company Big hART. It is based in the Aboriginal communities of Hermannsburg (NT) and Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia. Its focus is the life and work of the late Albert Namatjira, an Arrernte watercolour landscape artist. The project undertakes community work and has developed an award-winning touring theatre show, Namatjira, which depicts "the commercial appropriation of Aboriginal experience".
Scott Rankin is an Australian theatre director, writer and co-founder and creative director of the arts and social change company Big hART. Based in Tasmania, Rankin works in and with isolated communities and diverse cultural settings, as well as in commercial performance.
Michael Falzon was an Australian musical theatre/rock tenor actor, and producer, who ran his own production company, Good Egg Creative.
Ngapartji Ngapartji was an Australian Indigenous language maintenance/revitalisation and community development project that ran between 2005 and 2010. One of its spin-off projects, a stage production of the same name co-created by Scott Rankin and Trevor Jamieson, toured Australia extensively in between 2005 and 2008.
Mitchell Patrick Butel is an Australian actor, singer, director and writer. He is best known for his work in theatre, including musical and opera productions. He has been the artistic director of the State Theatre Company of South Australia since March 2019.
The Secret River is a play by Australian playwright Andrew Bovell, based upon the novel of the same name by Kate Grenville.
The award-winning play, simply titled Namatjira, features one of Australia's leading indigenous actors Trevor Jamieson in the title role,...
"The career highlights of the Mamu" was written by Trevor Jamieson and Scott Rankin. This production was performed at the Laokoon Festival, 2002 at Kampnagel, Hamburg.
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Written by Jamieson and Big hART's Creative Director Scott Rankin, the production was awarded the 2008 Deadly Award for Most Outstanding Achievement in Film, TV and Theatre...
The great Trevor Jamieson is calm and measured, but somewhat wasted in a role in which his 'client' refuses to open up, and hints about his past get only passing mention.
Trevor Jamieson is strong as Ruben's level-headed counsellor...
Trevor Jamieson, a formidable performing talent, writer and dancer in his own stead... and for Jamieson it reflects some of his own life experiences.
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