The Black Arm Band is a living, breathing social memoir tracking the history of Aboriginal resistance through song. The project brings together many of indigenous Australia’s key musical players in a mass gathering. With a sweeping, multi-media backdrop of images and documentary film footage from 1950s until now, murundak contains great anthems performed by an extraordinary, unprecedented line-up of Aboriginal songwriters and musicians and their collaborators.

Friday 24 July, WOMAD Charlton Park, Siam Tent, 8pm.
26 July, Shellie Morris, Saddlespan Stage, 8.30pm;
Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter, Saddlespan Stage, 9pm.

The songs performed in this very special event are the cornerstones of the soundtrack of contemporary Aboriginal life. They are an essential part of Australian folklore. Songs that tell of a big story, of a big hearted people, ‘crying out to be heard’. Tales of the tragedies and triumphs of Aboriginal experience.

“The Black Arm Band reminds me of the long struggle and the long journey we’ve been on. 30 years ago we were marching for justice down the city streets, but now we’re telling our stories at festivals and in concert halls.” — Archie Roach

A number of indigenous artists in The Black Arm Band are members of the ‘Stolen Generations’ of young Aboriginal children who were taken from their parents in a policy of assimilation that lasted from the 19th century to the early 1970s.

‘Says more about black and white solidarity than a million parliamentary speeches’
– The West Australian

On Wednesday 14 February 2008 Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered a historic formal apology to the Aboriginal people of Australia on behalf of its parliament and government for the past wrongs caused by successive governments on the indigenous Aboriginal population, singling out the ‘Stolen Generations’ of thousands of children forcibly removed from their families.

‘Up onstage were some of the greatest performers this country can presently boast of, members of what is described as black folk protest, a phenomenon as significant to the national cultural life as Aboriginal art’
– The Age, Australia

How to deal with the continuing effects of colonialism on the lives of the first Australians remains an unavoidable, central and enduring moral issue for both indigenous and non-indigenous Australians and continues to inspire this project. As noted by UK actor Pete Postlethwaite who will introduce the concert, the story of Australian indigenous struggle “Forced me to look at myself as an Englishman, to look at my Englishness and to confront the role that my country played in Australian history and particularly in the first nation, the Aboriginal history….”

Featured Artists: Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter, Shane Howard, Dan Sultan, Bart Willoughby, Shellie Morris, Dave Arden, Emma Donovan, Kutcha Edwards, Lou Bennett, Mark Atkins, Stephen Pigram, Peter Rotumah, Bevan Gabanbulu

Core Band: Ellen Blair (violin), Mandy Drummond (viola), Zem Audu (saxes), Harry Brown (trombone) and Alex Wilson (piano) leading the 4-piece UK based horn and string section

Following on from the Siam Tent performance, Black Arm Band members Shellie Morris and husband-and-wife team Archie Roach and Ruby Hunter perform on WOMAD’s Saddlespan Stage on Sunday 26 July at 8.30 and 9pm respectively.

www.blackarmband.com.au