Chronicles: Searching for Songlines
Chronicles is a major 3-year youth arts initiative that connects refugee, migrant and indigenous young people with their own and each other's cultural histories through a series of multi-arts performances stpringing from those young people gathering and sharing their families' oral histories. The project initiated by internationally acclaimed Aboriginal singer/songwriter Kerrianne Cox and Western Edge's Artistic director, Cymbeline Buhler, responds to issues that link young migrants and refugees in Melbourne's west and an Aboriginal community in remote Western Australia.
During 2010, young people from Footscray, Sunshine and Deer Park interviewed their elders for oral histories and created a performance that took the audience on a journey through different worlds and experiences. A hand carved giraffe for a new baby; rowing through floods in French-occupied Vietnam; a kidnapper caught red-handed by the butcher; a miracle recovery from the edge of death; and the first glimspe of wide open Australia.
Our elders' oral histories illuminate our own personal songlines.
Sharing them draws out echoes between us.
These are the stories that lie at the base of who we are.
Reviews
Behind the Critical Curtain: Cameron Woodhead
The Age: Cameron Woodhead
SBS Television
In July 2010, Western Edge Youth Arts ran workshops in collaboration with renowned singer-songwriter Kerrianne Cox as part of our Chronicles: Searching for Songlines Production. Throughout this three day workshop, our song 'Roots' was created.
Chronicles: Searching for Songlines Showreel, 2010
