When I
stayed with Tricia Reust (last Blog) she spoke many times of an Aboriginal
woman, named MAROOCHY BARAMBAH, who
was very active in bettering life for her people. Unfortunately, when I was
there she was traveling elsewhere. I later found that she is a mezzo-soprano
singer who is of the Turrbal-Gubbi Gubbi people and is a member of the Stolen
Generations. She considers herself a beneficiary of her removal. As a tribute
to her Aboriginality she took the names Maroochy (meaning "black
swan") and Barambah (meaning "source of the western wind". She
was born Yvette Isaacs in the 1950s in Cherbourg,
Queensland.
At the
age of 12 she was taken from her family and fostered out to a family in Melbourne. This movement was an effort by the government to separate children from their heritage. She later attended the Melba Conservatorium of Music in Melbourne
and Victorian College of the Arts where she graduated in
Dramatic Arts in 1979.
Maroochy rose to fame for her part in the 1989 Sydney
Metropolitan Opera production of “Black River”,
by Julianne and Andrew
Schultz, an opera about black deaths in custody. She also appeared
in the indigenous musical “Bran Nue Dae”,
the 1981 television series “Women of the
Sun”, and in the opera “Beach Dreaming”, written
for and about her by Mark Isaacs.
Maroochy
has also had extensive community involvement over many years working with the
younger generation of Indigenous Australians in the arts industry. She
has delivered several lectures on Aboriginal culture in various institutions
and was a keynote speaker at the Australian Reconciliation
Convention in
Melbourne in
May 1997.
(Tricia Reust) |
Tricia
has painted her several times. She certainly captures “the soul” of this remarkable woman who has a strong sense of who she is, her heritage and her role.
She comes from a songline, so she never doubted that she would end up singing. But Aboriginal music was not always as accepted as it is today. “If you come from your roots, you don’t have to impress people. We as a nation are coming to a point where we feel more comfortable with ourselves and with our culture."
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