The Black Arm Band

About dirtsong

dirtsong is the third major project of The Black Arm Band following murundak (2006) and Hidden Republic (2008).

Performed predominantly in Aboriginal languages, the project is presented in five episodes with songs and music inspired by the words of Alexis Wright. Many of the pieces are structured as musical “conversations” between the collaborating artists reflecting on country, conjuring not only a sense of geographical place but encounters, memories, obligations, community and nature.

dirtsong is drawn from Aboriginal Australia mixing traditional approaches and contemporary songs, existing repertoire and newly commissioned music, performed in 13 Indigenous Australian languages.

While the inspiration for dirtsong has been to awaken some sleeping Australian Indigenous languages and to work in a spirit of mutual respect and understanding, the project has required all involved to summon the courage to face many dilemmas.

Firstly, and most significantly, the deep pain of acknowledging why and how a language has been removed from use and the associated cultural, familial and community ramifications. For me, as an urban dwelling whitefella it is not such a huge empathetic leap to understand the dire social and political consequences wrought through the removal of language.

Then, if words or phrases are missing, do you make up substitutes? Should you, and how do you modernise a language that was last widely spoken in the 1800s? And is this engineering of language right or wrong?

Like the polar ice caps it seems that the world’s languages are melting away. According to UNESCO, they disappear at a rate of one every two weeks. And if we don’t stop the decline, 90% of the world’s languages will be gone by the end of this century.

Aboriginal languages are part of Australia’s rich, deep cultural heritage. The inexorable march of English across the globe is partly to blame for the drying pool of language diversity. And this is nowhere more evident than in Australia. Since colonisation, we have the worst record of language extinction on the planet. Before the arrival of Europeans there were hundreds of languages spoken here but only around half of them are left and many of them are critically endangered.

We hope that you enjoy dirtsong.