Dirtsong: Black Arm Band at TEDxSydney 2014

Featuring Deline Briscoe
Sung in Yorta Yorta
Written Lou Bennett, Alexis Wright
Musical arrangement Iain Grandage

"From the Echuca, Barmah region, the heartland of Yorta Yorta country, it is a song of the connection of people, song and country. 'Baiyan Woka' is Yorta Yorta for singing for country/land. This song comes from the depths of my knowing and understanding that we all have connection, we just have to learn 'Gulpa Ngarwal' (deep listening)." - Lou Bennett

Black Arm Band is a flexible musical theatre ensemble that performs on stages and in community contexts across the globe, as well as extensively across metropolitan, regional and remote Australia. In an international context, the group interrogates and promotes contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture through the creation of large-scale music theatre productions, music, installations and multimedia projects. In seven years, the company has provided professional pathways and opportunities for many artists and performed to over one million people. Black Arm Band's current performance, titled dirtsong, inspired by the words of award-winning author Alexis Wright, mixes traditional approaches and contemporary songs, existing repertoire and newly commissioned music to conjure a sense of 'country' as not only a geographical place, but as encounters, memories, obligations and nature.

TEDxSydney is an independently organised event licensed from TED by longtime TEDster, Remo Giuffré (REMO General Store) and organised by his General Thinking network of fellow thinkers and other long time collaborators.

TEDxSydney has become the leading platform and pipeline for the propagation of Australian ideas, creativity, innovation and culture to the rest of the world.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)