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| My Name is Jimi |
Artifacts and symbols of Indigenous Torres Strait Islander
culture sit in glass cases around the stage, high above us, out of reach.
Museum pieces kept a long way from the world where they were created. This is
colonialism in its simplest form - culturally destructive but explained away as
keeping history preserved.
As Jimi Bani explains, though, the history and culture of
his people, the Wagadagam of the Western part of the Torres Strait, is kept
alive by storytelling and language. Jimi’s father Dimple, who was at the
forefront of creating this show before he passed away, was a linguist and the
latest in a line of Wagadagam Chiefs.
Dimple spent a lot of his life finding ways to tell the
story of his people, through documentaries and plays and stories and
performance. He also tried to get those artifacts of his people returned from
the museums of Europe, but even after promising they would return them, they
never did.
Jimi is a performer in his own right, in a way that we
recognise that term – having performed in theatre companies across Australia
and in film and television. He has taken up his father’s mantle and has toured this
production extensively to get the word out. And the history out. And the dance
out.
He’s not alone on stage, though. There are three generations
with him: his mother and aunt, his brothers and one of his own children. Director
Jason Klarwein has harnessed the joyful energy and truth of Jimi’s family and
created a beautifully devised piece theatre that in moments is simply the
performance of ritual dance or the donning of traditional costume and
headdress.
There are moments of predictable culture clash – times when son
Dimtri won’t put his phone down to listen to stories of his people’s history.
But the idea that technology is merely a distraction to tradition is
dramatically undermined by its use in the show – cameras used to film dioramas,
to film dances, projectors used to retell ancient stories or project a vision of
the night sky.
Jimi goes through a lengthy process of explaining his family
tree early on in the show and promises there will be a test later. It’s a
well-worn joke that actually works dramatically later on; we the audience have
learned a little of his history and culture and the fact we can recite back
some of the Wagadagam language late in the show is proof that a shared culture
will never die.
This is a beautiful show that began at Queensland Theatre
and has traveled to Darwin and Sydney and now is at the Melbourne Festival. I
hope it continues to travel all over this country, because we need to hear
Indigenous voices telling their history. And I hope it travels to Europe,
because if stealing artifacts is part of their history, Jimi telling his story back
to them should be part of it, too.
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