News
Hidden Republic joins Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad program
27 January 2010
The Black Arm Band is thrilled to announce that it will be representing Australia in the 2010 Cultural Program of the Winter Olympics. For the first time in the Games history, the 2010 Olympics Cultural Program is focusing on Aboriginal programming, featuring many high profile Indigenous artists from around the world.
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dirtsong, Premiere
3 August 2009
Presented by Melbourne International Arts Festival in association with Arts House and in collaboration with The Black Arm Band.
dirtsong is a music performance from Aboriginal Australia mixing traditional and contemporary songs, existing repertoire with newly commissioned music and sung in many Indigenous Australian languages.
2009 Remote and Regional Tour
16 July 2009
The Black Arm Band is excited to announce our up coming remote and regional tour in partnership with The Fred Hollows Foundation.
In a dynamic and visionary new Indigenous Health Partnership, The Black Arm Band and the Fred Hollows Foundation is embarking on a unique touring opportunity to present the large-scale murundak ('alive' in woirrurung language) and recent work, Hidden Republic to audiences across Australia's most isolated regions.
Tour Dates:
17 July
Queensland Music Festival
Thursday Island, Queensland
http://www.qmf.org.au/
2009 WOMAD UK
16 July 2009
With a ‘Welcome to Country’ introduction by Pete Postlethwaite.
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Deadly Winners & Hidden Republic!
10 October 2008
We won Band of the Year at this year's Deadly Awards last night! Thanks to everyone who voted for us, came to see our shows, or supported us in any other way. We wouldn't be this far without you!
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Hidden Republic at Melbourne Festival in October
18 August 2008
It's as though we're starting everything over again. Our winter touring over for now, The Black Arm Band is currently working full-tilt preparing for our newest piece, Hidden Republic , premiering as a part of the 2008 Melbourne Festival , two years after murundak first took the stage.
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Our first international date, in London, UK!
30 April 2008
It’s been a busy year so far! Festival-hopping from Sydney to Perth, before heading off to WOMADelaide, the gang kept energy high, and each show has continued to be a raging success. A big thanks to everyone who came to see and support the Black Arm Band, and congratulations to everyone involved with the Black Arm Band for a great start to 2008.
If that weren’t enough, we're now gearing up for our first international appearance in June. The ‘superband’ and their collaborators will appear at London’s Royal Festival Hall as part of London International Festival of Theatre on June 26th 2008. The LIFT Festival [London International Festival of Theatre] and the Southank Centre have confirmed the Black Arm Band to perform murundak as a highlight of the LIFT 2008 program in the Royal Festival Hall.
Angharad Wynne Jones, Artistic Director of LIFT is thrilled to be able to invite the first large-scale work by Australian indigenous artists in the newly-refurbished Royal Festival Hall, enthusing that “ murundak is a poignant work of national significance with international resonance. It attempts to come to grips with an important theatre in recent Australian music history. It is also incredibly moving to see musicians from across the country on one stage, connected together by their passion for the expressive power of music”.
Then, not even a month later, the gang will be welcoming the whole city of Brisbane for the biennial Brisbane Festival’s very special FREE opening event at the City Botanic Gardens on July 18, 2008.
Busy busy times, but exciting times!
Black Arm Band 'murundak' has won the 2007 Helpmann Award for Best Australian Contemporary Concert!
7 August 2007
The Helpman Awards recognise outstanding achievement in the Performing Arts. Congratulations to all the mob!
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The Beginning
17 October 2006
The growing consciousness for this project began nearly 20 years ago when I toured remote Aboriginal communities as a member of Circus Oz, flying around the top end in an old DC3, experiencing first hand the culture of remote community. It was then that a seed was planted in my mind. murundak and The Black Arm Band is the flower from that seed.
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