Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Kurruru is Australia’s only Indigenous youth performing arts company and has its base on Kaurna land in my electorate of Port Adelaide. Growing out of the Port Youth Theatre Workshop, which was formed in 1984, Kurruru is a vibrant, multifaceted organisation that is involved in so many projects that I will only have time today to cover a sample of what they do.

Port Adelaide is home to a large Indigenous community. Kurruru provides an exciting weekly workshop program that gives kids and young adults the opportunity to explore the arts. The emphasis is on quality, a vital ingredient if kids are to be inspired for future involvement. Professional artists, with the help of the company’s team of Indigenous support workers, run workshops in theatre, circus, contemporary and traditional dance, breakdance and music. The workshops are organised by age and art form and are available to 200 young people aged four to 26. To ensure accessibility for all, these workshops are free of charge and transport is provided. Every parent knows the link between concentration levels and food, and Kurruru cannily provides healthy food options at each workshop to ensure young minds stay focused. At the end of the year all participants perform in the annual showcase, Yella Kiana.

Kurruru further their commitment to accessible opportunity by not limiting these workshops to the port. Working in partnership with communities across the state, Kurruru also offers a regional program which is particularly strong in the Flinders Ranges, the lower Murray region and Point Pearce on the Yorke Peninsula. These workshops are the foundation of the company. Kurruru means ‘circle’ in the Kaurna language and the workshops reflect this image. Participants develop not only skills, confidence and relationships through these workshops but often a lasting love for the arts, increased pride in their community and a desire to keep working in the promotion of Indigenous arts. It is from these workshops that Kurruru creates the basis for its troupes and performance projects and cultivates future artists and staff.

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, the member for Kingsford Smith, recently underlined the federal government’s support for Kurruru by choosing a visit to their base to announce funding of more than $37 million for Indigenous arts, cultural, language and broadcasting programs in 2008-09. During that visit we and others were treated to a performance by Kurruru dancers that blended hip-hop, contemporary and traditional dance moves and was choreographed by the associate artistic director, a very talented young man, Damien Ralphs. It was a showcase of the talent and innovation that is the hallmark of this company.

The Kurruru Dance Ensemble and Nunga Circus have earned a reputation as well-respected performance troupes and perform locally as well as at major festivals across Australia. Their 2006 major show, Crossing Paths, won the Best Dance Award at the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Anyone who has visited Adelaide during the fringe—as I am sure you have, Madam Deputy Speaker—would know that a frenzy of talent descends on the city from across the globe during that festival. To stand out in such a crowd is a very serious achievement.

Community cultural development underpins Kurruru’s work. The Kulcha Moves program includes activities like back-to-country camps, learning traditional practices and cross-generational learning. Confronting divisions by combining the traditional with the contemporary, the old with the young and the rural with the urban, Kulcha Moves emphasises exchange, respect and the importance of a strong sense of Indigenous pride and identity. Every two years, Kurruru also releases a professionally recorded CD entitled Blak Traks that showcases young emerging Indigenous musicians as well as giving youth voice an audience. This year, the team also worked with young men and women currently living in the Cavan and Magill youth training centres, giving them the chance to express themselves in a positive, exciting and constructive way.

I have had the pleasure of meeting just some of the people who have helped shape the philosophy and ensure the success of this extraordinary company, which has very strong links to local Indigenous communities. Just a few of those people are Kurruru’s company manager, Emma Webb; director, Diat Alferink; community networker, the incomparable Aunty Josie Agius; and acting cultural director, Pat Waria-Read. I look forward to many more years of fantastic work by this outstanding organisation.