Community Arts Network has announced a partnership with The City of Perth to bring ‘Djinda Djinda Kanangoor’, a Noongar version of the lullaby ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, to outdoor screens throughout Yagan Square, Perth Cultural Centre and Northbridge Piazza this summer.
The video of the performance will play every night at sunset until the end of the year, alongside a film written, directed and produced by Aboriginal artists.
It will provide Perth residents with a unique opportunity to hear the popular lullaby performed in one of the world’s oldest languages.
Commissioned by CAN, ‘Djinda Djinda Kanangoor’ is part of the network’s ‘Lullabies’ project, a program that teaches Noongar language through songs and storytelling.
Noongar elders and professional artists facilitate the program, with funding largely from the state government.
Working as an education officer at the Noongar Boodjar Language Centre, artist Charmaine Councillor has taken a principal role leading the ‘Lullabies’ project for CAN, telling Business News the program was helping re-establish the cultural value of the Noongar language.
“This is sort of a modern version of re-establishing songs and reincorporating them back into our culture and helping our children to learn the language using these songs,” she said.
Previously, she said the Noongar people would have used songs and language to tell creation stories pertaining to their culture.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have any of that now and we don’t practice that custom anymore,” Ms Councillor said.
“What we’re trying to do now is to reconnect with the language through a modern medium, like audio and modern instruments, and bring the language back into a modern setting, which it hasn’t been in a long time.”
She said that the ‘Lullabies’ program was a way to introduce Noongar children and the wider public to one of the world’s oldest cultures.
“Hopefully children these days will not experience a loss of language, and instead as something that has always been,” Ms Councillor said.
“For my generation, we didn’t have that opportunity.
“We want children today to not have to talk about the loss anymore, because they do have it now and it’s available and accessible.”
