Wanha! Journey to Arnhem

Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we have the opportunity to experience an event that might be considered life changing. Preconceptions disintegrate. Our senses gradually become overloaded. Our eyes widen, and an impossible smile forms on our mouths. Our minds race in an attempt to catch-up and keep up with all the details of this rapidly evolving new experience. These events have the power to take us to places we have never imagined … and after a brief moment of panic about how little and lost we feel in this totally unexpected new realm, we have no other choice but to surrender, completely, to the perfect combination of time, talent and place.

Wanha! Journey to Arnhem is such an event.

‘Wanha!’ (‘great to go’ … ‘great to journey’) began as a series of ‘East Arnhem Live’ online concerts, filmed as a response to the disruption caused to the local artists by the COVID-19 pandemic. While not only showcasing the geographical splendour of their homelands, the concerts also revealed the abundance of talent that Yolŋu people share. And while this might not come as a surprise (the internationally renowned band Yothu Yindi included Yolŋu musicians Witiyana Marika, Milkayngu Mununggurr, Dr G Yunupingu and Bakamana Yunupingu), the online concerts worked a very particular kind of magic by transporting locked-down viewers around Australia and the world to a timeless place at a time when so many of us yearned to be able to visit in person.

But it is the preserve of live performance that makes the experience of music all encompassing – and after the elegant and powerfully authoritative introduction by Merrkiyawuy Ganambarr-Stubbs, Djakapurra Munyarryun’s performance of his amazing songlines dismantled whatever critical faculty I might have brought to the occasion. My soul felt suddenly and uncommonly nourished and alert. As close as I felt to him was as far away from him and the obvious spiritual connection to his performance that I was. It felt as though I had been called and embraced, and yet the distance between us seemed almost unnaturally wide. Completely confused, I could only sink further into the grass where I sat.

I mustn’t have been the only one, because when the Andrew Gurruwiwi Band powered up for their spectacular rendition of Back to Culture, the capacity audience rose from the grass and the surrounding chairs and surged to the stage where they remained for the rest of the evening. It was like an elastic band had snapped … as if some magnetic force had dragged us all up from the ground to our feet and then forward.

With Warren Handley and Matt Maclean’s splendid projections of places, faces, flames and coastline behind them, and the perfect rock-star lighting rig, each of the performers worked their undeniable magic on their captivated crowd who, I am certain, would more than happily have stayed all night.

And as I wandered home, my mind was in a daze. What would I have to say about this ‘one night only’ experience? I’m a middle-class, 50-something year old white man who grew up in the outer Melbourne suburb of Glen Waverley. But ever since this night, I have felt humbled. I have felt ignorant. I have wondered why I learned German at school and not a language I might need living in the Northern Territory. I have wondered why Meatloaf sang at the AFL Grand Final that year and not these performers. I have wondered why a night like this should be the exception rather than the rule. And I have greatly appreciated that, here in Darwin, we are so spoiled. Not only because we have been COVID-lucky, but because we can experience nights like this. If ever you have the opportunity to experience Wanha! Journey to Arnhem, don’t hesitate. You will never forget it.

Geoffrey Williams

Photo: Wanha! Journey to Arnhem. Photography by Elizabeth Rogers.