Exhibition
An exhibition at the State Library of Queensland about the Deaf Indigenous Dance Group has the power to radically reorientate public perceptions of communication. By Fiona Murphy.
State Library of Queensland’s Deaf in dance: feeling the beat
“Many people think Deaf mob cannot dance, cannot hear the didgeridoo and clapping sticks,” says Aviu Ware, a member of the Deaf Indigenous Dance Group (DIDG). “I feel it in my heart, in my body, in my legs, and the rhythm, the feeling of the didgeridoo and the clapping stick on the didgeridoo is how we feel our heartbeat as well.”
DIDG was co-founded in 1997 by friends Patty Morris-Banjo and Priscilla Seden. The pair wanted to create a safe and social space for Deaf and hard-of-hearing First Nations people from the Cape York Peninsula and Torres Strait Islands.
The exhibition Deaf in dance: feeling the beat – now showing at the State Library of Queensland – celebrates the renowned Far North Queensland dance troupe. Curated by Serene Fernando, a Gamilaraay woman, Deaf in dance consists of artworks, oral histories, mixed-media portraits and documentary photography from across the troupe’s 27-year history.
“We’re all different. We’re from different tribes, we’re all not from one,” says Sue Frank, a founding member of DIDG. “We’ve brought them all together … we’ve become a Deaf mob.”
Frank joined DIDG when she was 17 years old and has since become the group’s president. Her story has been recorded, along with those of other dancers, in a series of oral histories translated from sign language to English. Select quotes from these audio recordings are displayed on large placards throughout the exhibition. Frank explains why the establishment of the troupe has been important for her and the community.
“Indigenous people suffer more [when they are deaf or hard of hearing],” she says. “They lose their culture, they lose their identity, they lose their language.”
Language is an extraordinarily powerful thread running throughout the exhibition. Attendees follow a winding pathway on the lower ground floor of the library. On one side of the walkway there are glass cabinets containing the visual and digital archive of DIDG’s history, and along the other side is a bench seat, allowing people to stop and linger. Short videos play in a loop, showing the dancers telling the stories of their lives and dance practice in sign language.
Within the span of a few minutes, Deaf in dance has the potential to radically reorientate the general public’s perceptions of deafness and communication. Attendees who might have become aware of Auslan during the countless pandemic press conferences may suddenly gain insight into the breadth and depth of Indigenous sign languages that have existed across Australia for thousands of years.
DIDG has been described as the “keepers of Indigenous sign language”. As well as infusing their performances with language, many of the dancers prefer communicating with Indigenous sign. “I learnt traditional Aboriginal sign language from Country, from my elders,” says Frank. “And then when I came to Cairns to go to school, I learnt Auslan to have access to the Deaf community.”
Isolation emerges as a theme throughout the stories, with the dancers having to navigate multiple languages while continually moving between the hearing and Deaf worlds. “I’m an interpreter,” says fellow dancer Shadrach Sales-Graham. “I have to translate from Auslan into my mob language.”
Frank explains that dancing with the troupe is “about healing and wellbeing – for people to feel connected to their culture, language and identity, which improves their mental health”.
Despite the many benefits of dancing, as well as the growing accolades the troupe has received, Frank says misconceptions of deafness persist in wider society. “The hearing are like, ‘How do you dance? How can the deaf dance?’ ” says Frank. “We’ve all got a disability, yes. But we can dance! It is cultural. We are a mob.”
In recent years DIDG has grown, which has enabled it to perform around Australia, including at the Deaf festivals in Melbourne and Sydney. The group prefers to rehearse on a wooden stage, so they can feel the vibrations through the floorboards. During performances, a lead dancer provides visual cues, enabling the dancers to stay in sync with one another.
Striking photographs by Sean Davey and Aishah Kenton of the dancers practising in rehearsals or performing at events are on display throughout the showcase. The collaboration between the photographers and DIDG was sparked following a meeting at the 2021 Laura Quinkan Dance Festival in Far North Queensland. It has also resulted in several mixed-media artworks, which also form part of the Deaf in dance exhibition.
The showcase captures the troupe during a period of expansive growth, just as its talent is beginning to be recognised on a national scale. In 2023, DIDG travelled to the Sydney Opera House to debut at DanceRites, Australia’s premier First Nations dance competition. The competition brought together 22 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community dance groups from across the country. Each group performed a cultural dance and song cycle on the Opera House forecourt. A panel of “First Nations respected dance and song line custodians, professional choreographers and dance practitioners” decided the eight finalists who would compete for the 2023 DanceRites Prize.
“When I saw DIDG perform, I was personally amazed because I had never seen Deaf dancers, myself. And I could see how much they delighted the audience,” said Michael Hutchings, head of First Nations programming at the Sydney Opera House. “They were able to just compete on the same level as all the other dance groups.”
The troupe made it through the heats into the final with their performance of Dreamtime stories and were recognised with a Rites of Passage Award. Footage of the competition, courtesy of NITV, is prominently displayed in the exhibition.
Deaf in dance features accessible design elements ranging from Auslan tours, a braille gallery map and full audio descriptions to colourful custom tactile artworks from Kalkadoon artist Bree Buttenshaw. However, the showcase is far from being a truly accessible experience. The harsh glare reflecting off the glass cabinets makes it challenging to read the captioned videos. Many of the screens are deeply set into the cabinets and the sound from videos looping close by makes it difficult to hear and focus. But perhaps the biggest missed opportunity is the lack of video footage or transcripts from the dancers’ oral histories, which now belong in the library’s collection.
Deaf in dance is a slipstream into a Deaf world that is full of ingenuity, complexity and beauty. But being deaf in a hearing world is not easy. The dancers speak plainly about the barriers that still exist and the limitations in access. Penned at the bottom of Morris-Banjo’s portrait is a statement that neatly sums it up: “Being deaf in the community takes courage, all my friend[s] who are deaf are very courageous.”
Deaf in dance: feeling the beat is showing at the State Library of Queensland until March 16.
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on August 31, 2024 as "The beat of the heart".
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