Willy Willy

As part of Ausdance WA’s Future Landings program, Willy Willy has an Indigenous undercurrent woven into the lining of different stories as well as an element of the over arching major theme of Learning. The title Willy Willy has been derived from an analogy spoken by one of the local Indigenous Elders as she discussed the breakdown in the modern learning systems as opposed to the more nurturing, stable learning systems of cultural Australia.

Directed and choreographed by Janine Oxenham, the project explores different methods of learning, focusing on Indigenous specific learning processes and how it clashes and compliments learning styles of modern Australia. A segment of the work also gives reverence to Grandparents past, present and future, cherishing the importance of their teachings within their children’s children’s lives.

Janine touches on old learning technologies from drawing in the sand and on cave walls to how learning mediums have progressed and morphed into the current technological machines that now captivate our focus. The production also focuses on how modern means of communication have decreased personal and physical contact between community members and lessened the consequential implications of people’s actions. The culmination of the works will be imparting historical information on the audience themselves and giving them an education in the tent era of Carnarvon’s past; where the ‘non-citizens’ lived on the outskirts of Carnarvon in tents and what life was like for them at that time.

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Directed and choreographed by Janine Oxenham
Presented in partnership with Aartworks