FACE THE MUSIC
TASMANIA’S BRUTAL HISTORY LAID BARE IN CHALLENGING NEW WORKS
G rieving is healing and to deny it is to leave a wound raw and untended. Much like the wound that still runs so deep in Tasmania, one that divides Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Tasmanians. Aboriginal Tasmanians suffered such brutality at the hands of European colonists that the true horror of their history can be difficult to digest. To say nothing of the anguish still felt by many in the Aboriginal community, even European Tasmanians tend to avoid confronting that shameful history whenever possible. And some prefer to ignore it altogether.
An ambitious musical production, A Tasmanian Requiem, aims to give Tasmanians – Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal – the opportunity to acknowledge the losses, to grieve for what is gone, and to approach the future with an attitude of hope and unity.
And if that concept sounds lofty and idealistic, well, it is. This wound has festered for more than 200 years.
The creators of A Tasmanian Requiem are all too aware of how gargantuan their task is, but they believe the requiem comes at a time when there is a groundswell of support for reconciliation, and that Tasmania is well and truly overdue for a healthy dose of confession, atonement and optimism, confronting the realities of the Black War.
“I moved here from New Zealand when I was 18 and I had this experience of coming to Tassie from somewhere else and getting that sense of something being missing,” says producer Frances Butler, a Pakeha, or non-Maori, person.
“I know it’s not a pretty analogy, but it’s almost like we’re living on a scab that sits on top of a wound that is not healing. And after all these years, we have built so much on top of that scab, you don't realise how bad it is beneath.
“When we started working on this idea, we had a sense of really wanting to make our feelings clear, to atone for the past, our way of saying we are really sorry about what happened, and that we understand we continue to benefit from what happened. We have an obligation to do something about it, to acknowledge it.”
As Butler discussed this with her friend, composer Helen Thomson, they settled on the idea of a requiem to deliver their message.
Traditionally a religious composition, a requiem is a sung or chanted mass for saying farewell to someone who has died, but at the same time expressing great hope and faith. It seemed like the perfect format. Except for one thing. “One of the first things that came up in our first meeting with members of the Aboriginal community was the word requiem,” Thomson says.
“I remember someone saying, ‘well, why a requiem? We’re still here and we’re not interested in people continuing to pretend we’re not.’
“I had to say, ‘No no no, that’s not what we’re trying to say at all’. We had a big discussion about what we were and weren’t commemorating. And it’s not the death of the Tasmanian people or culture, because they are not dead, they survived. But an awful lot was lost on both sides as a result of that attempted genocide in Tasmania: our innocence, opportunities, the chance to do things differently and not be so ashamed of our history. All of that echoes down through generations.”
Thomson, an experienced composer who also lectures at the University of Tasmania’s Conservatorium of Music, has always wanted to write a requiem and admits she liked the subversive touch of appropriating a piece of European culture and adapting it to tell the story of an ancient culture that has suffered so much at the hands of European people.
But the hint of strain and trauma in her voice when she speaks of the writing process indicates just how much work went into this artistic labour. “I’ve done a lot of composition over the years but nothing on this scale,” Thomson says. “Doing a requiem was on my bucket list but now that I’ve done it, I’ve realised it is really the sort of thing that should wait until you’re genuinely established in your craft. “I don’t think I was when I started. But I certainly am now.”
A Tasmanian Requiem echoes the structure of a traditional Requiem Mass, with nine movements divided into three acts. The first act is the ancient history of the Tasmanian Aboriginal people, the second act is the European invasion, the Black War, and the purging of this violent period from the collective consciousness, and the third act captures the resurgence of the Aboriginal voice in modern Tasmania, as well as the uncomfortable awakening of European Tasmanians to the realities of the past, and hope for a better future.
Written by Greg Lehman, Jim Everett-puralia meenamatta and Frances Butler, with musical direction by Gary Wain, and visual design by Julie Gough, the requiem is performed by a brass quintet and sung in three different languages: Latin, English and Tasmanian Aboriginal language, as recorded in colonial times.
As well as music and voice, and poetry written by Everettpuralia meenamatta, the live performances will also feature visual imagery and film, to create a fully immersive experience.
“We will be filming the live performances and producing materials that can then be used as resources for schools to discuss this issue as well,” Butler says. “All the source material we used for our research, we will make available for schools to use as well.
“There are only going to be five performances, and two of those will be school-only shows, so it will be a very limited season, but we’re going to preserve it through filming it, and we’re hoping that those performances will be enough to have the desired effect in the community.
“Mostly, we’re pitching this concert at a relatively cultured audience, the TSO [Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra] crowd, but that’s quite intentional because it means we can open the hearts and minds of the people who are in those positions of influence in the community, who are able to help sway opinions, to spread the message that the Aboriginal people, this culture, it is alive and still evolving and growing and there is an important truth we need to acknowledge here.”
There is clearly something important to be gained from all of this. Obviously, chief among these benefits is the acknowledgement of past wrongs, confronting the fact that we benefit from those wrongs, and committing to forging a better future based on accepting the awful truth of our history, and progressing together. In a word, reconciliation. But there is more. A broader, more enriching cultural benefit is waiting to be seized as well, if we are brave enough to grasp it.
“I come from a country where the first people’s culture is inherent in everything we grow up with,” Butler says. “In New Zealand, we grow up with Maori stories and songs, learning the language is compulsory, and I guess that tends to give you an insight into meaning and place, and I feel privileged to have been able to share that, even as a Pakeha.
“But now, living in Tasmania, it is very different. I’m raising my kids here and I feel they are missing out on the privilege I had as a kid of growing up learning the local culture and language. That shared knowledge of culture is something both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people are missing out on. It affects us all.”
Butler says the dual-naming of some Tasmanian locations is a great step forward, as it encourages non-Aboriginal Tasmanians to become familiar with the language, which automatically starts building an empathy for the culture.
Learning to understand Aboriginal culture, instead of ignoring its resilience and continued survival, could be the start of a new era of mutual understanding and custodianship of this island.
“Just think about the All Blacks and the haka,” Butler says. “I think every Pakeha is just as proud of that as any Maori. Even the word Pakeha, which basically means ‘other’ person, for a long time was thought to be an insult to European people but it’s not, it is now a word of belonging, it just means nonMaori New Zealander.
“In New Zealand there is this incredible pride in the way we now share that culture and use traditional place names and so forth. It enriches all of us, Maori and Pakeha. In Tasmania, we also live in a place that can have that shared culture, and there is no reason why Tasmania can’t be similarly enhanced.”
A Tasmanian Requiem opens at the Theatre Royal in Hobart on Friday, April 13, concluding on Saturday, April 14, with three shows only open to the public. Ticket prices from $45-$90, book through theatreroyal.com.au or the Theatre Royal box office on 6233 2299 (for freecall outside Hobart 1800 650 277)