“I’ll show you that manyardi”: Memory and lived experience in the performance of public ceremony in Western Arnhem Land

Abstract

This chapter examines the role of archival recordings as an aid to revive and maintain song and dance practices and connections to ancestry and Country associated with the living performance tradition manyardi in the region of Western Arnhem Land, Australia. Specifically, it addresses the questions: How do performance traditions such as manyardi from Western Arnhem Land materialise ancestral connections in the present? And how do archival recordings of songs inform and sustain the practice of manyardi and composition of new songs?