A performance of the Crossing Roper Bar, a collaboration between the AAO and the Young Wagilak Musicians drew a large and very enthusiastic audience on Friday evening to the Melbourne Recital Centre - it’s a rare night when audience members cry out “thank-you” at the end of performances here.

You may never have heard of it but there is a buzz around this project that reflects an increasing interest in Ngukurr arts, not just music but also dance and painting, which is seen by some commentators, such as Nicolas Rothwell, as evidence of an incipient renaissance. Others are less hopeful and fear that the art and art practices of this part of Arnhem land are endangered

The work takes its name, a metaphor of sorts, from the Roper Bar, a fordable section of the Roper River in Arnhem Land that separates the Indigenous Wagilak-Nilipidgi community and their precariously held manikay song cycles from beyond. In crossing the bar in 2004 and creating this work, which is currently on tour, composer and AAO artistic direct Grabowsky initiated a bidirectional musical dialogue that continues to grow in importance and stature.

The work itself is a fluid, electrified fusion or a dialogue and cross-reflection of traditional song histories and dance with Grabowski’s intense art jazz stylings realized by the practiced extemporizations of his ensemble. During our performance, four paintings by the Wifreds grandfather, Djambu Barra Barra) were projected above the musicians recalling that this is the country and tradition that the late Ginger Riley painted, and a seat of a vibrant visual arts heritage.

The project originated from workshops held during Grabowski’s first visit to South east Arhhem Land and was clearly struck by the musical traditions of the Ngukurr. He established the project in collaboration with Benjamin Wilfred and the form evolved. The songs recall ancestral histories, including the formation of the spear and hunting and conclude with a farewell song. Unfortunately I could not locate a translated transcript of the manikay or find much specific information on the Indigenous performers- the AAO website entries on the Wilfreds links back to a generic statement on music of their region but provides no biographical details, (at least that I could locate).

It is difficult to know, as the other renditions available to hear are too fragmentary, if the present interpretation has an underlying composed framework of Grabowski’s making to link the vigorous and often very loud jazz sections when they are intercut with traditional songforms. But the main goal in any case is not to fix the music but allow free and spontaneous responses to the manikay cycles in each performance.

To my ear the intensity, complexity and sheer enthusiasm of the jazz components often enveloped and sometimes threatened to overwhelm the traditional forms. But there can be no doubting that all the musicians proceed in their performance with a deep, almost reverential, respect for the song cycles and each other. And jazz with its form-long history of drawing inspiration and direction from other musical traditions is almost the only way that the manikay could be encountered and responded to musically without risk of assimilation and distortion. The jazz responses to the song cycle seem almost primary artistic abstractions inspired by their profound magnificence.

At one level this could strike the listener as somewhat like other jazz fusion projects drawing on world music elements (and Grabowski has also collaborated on analogous projects in India with the Sruthi Laya Ensemble to perform Into the Fire under the Gateway to India, Mumbai, 2007). But the importance of Crossing Roper Bar cannot be overlooked.

The manikay cycles are regarded by ethnographical musicologists as a major art form and national treasure. This is “a musico-poetic mapping of land, language and knowledge coming from deep within the well of the past” said Grabowsky. They exist only as a living cycle passed on through performance and are therefore at great risk of being lost if not performed.

Creating Crossing Roper Bar, which is now a recording project according to the AAO website, is one essential means by which this ancient musical tradition continues and lives on into the future.

Crossing Roper Bar
Melbourne Recital Centre, Friday 28th August 2009.<

Benjamin Wilfred (Voice, Didjeridu, Clapsticks)
Daniel Wilfred (Voice, Didjeridu)
Evan Wilfred (Voice, Clapsticks, Dance)
Wesley Wilfred (Dance)