Indigenous Entertainers and Entrepreneurs in 1950S

1 2 6 exclusive complimentary souvenir programme indigenous entertainers and 7 entrepreneurs in 1950s melbourne at the City Gallery, Curated by Virginia Fraser & Destiny DeaconMelbourne Town Hall Swanston Sreet 3 8 9 1 Glamour from the second half of the show, including Joyce Johnson (centre, in white), JoanSaunders (further right). Mervyn Williams (second from right) and Eric Onus (far right). 2 Theatre program centre pages. 3 Program note on Aboriginal Tribes and Customs. 4 Bios of An Aboriginal Moomba ‘scriptress’, Jean Campbell, and director, Irene Mitchell. 5 An Aboriginal Moomba stars Harold Blair and Georgia Lee program bios. 6 Cabaret singer, Georgia Lee, in costume as Nerida from An Aboriginal Moomba. 7 Jacob Chirnside as Toolaba, the cheiftain. 8 Pam Nicholls (left) and Eileen Young 4 5 (right) on set with a stuffed dingo. 9 Showman, Bill Onus, in costume on the set of: An Aboriginal Moomba. This exhibition began with the discovery, in the Public Record Office Victoria, of a program and about a dozen small black and white photographs from a now almost forgotten 1951 production at the Princess Theatre, Melbourne... An Aboriginal Moomba: Out of the Four years later, one of those refused, Hermansberg and the Native Affairs newly famous calypso singer, Harry Dark was forced into being primarily Albert Karloan, again wrote to the Branch of the NT Administration. Belafonte, watched by Doug Nicholls, through the efforts of Pastor Doug Protector, this time seeking a loan of learning to throw one of Aboriginal 9 Nicholls in response to a total lack of 150 pounds to buy a ‘cinematograph In this political and legislative Enterprises’ boomerangs. Other Indigenous content in the Victorian outfit’, including a “Machine and all environment, An Aboriginal Moomba star shoppers included Beatle, Centenary celebrations.i necessary parts’, which he had already was unusual in getting government John Lennon, and TV stars, the located. support, media attention, and the Mousketeers, from Disney’s Mickey On a grant of two thousand pounds co-operation of influential non- Mouse Club. wrung from the State Government, His plan was to ‘travel the country in Indigenous professionals for an with acts and artists assembled by company with my Son Clement giving ambitious Aboriginal project. Later in the 1960s, Bill Onus had his Aboriginal activist, showman and entertainment of illustrated Songs and own ABC TV series, Alcheringa, in entrepreneur, Bill Onus, and with Recitation by Slide pictures as well as It was nevertheless neither which he introduced and commented the co-operation of non-Indigenous Film Pictures’. anomalous, nor the first or the on dramatised aspects of Victorian theatre professionals including last show of its kind. Previously Aboriginal life before colonisation. 10 writer Jean Campbell, director Irene The book, Survival in Our Own Land: Bill Onus, and his brother, Eric, Mitchell and Garnet Carroll, the Aboriginal Experiences in South had staged several similarly Paradoxically for the assimilationist Princess’s proprietor, An Aboriginal Australia since 1836ii, from which constructed entertainments as 1950s, the reviews for An Aboriginal Moomba was put together in a matter this story and these quotes come, entrepreneurs, including their Moomba were wildly approving of the of weeks. includes a facsimile of Karloan’s letter, 1949 Corroboree at Wirth’s first part of the show – the traditional in copperplate writing, also proposing Olympia on the site now occupied part, as the critics thought of it – but It showcased both ancient and terms for repayment. by the Victorian Arts Centre. generally dismissive of the second half, modern Indigenous culture, its cast which featured Indigenous performers drawn from Melbourne, NSW and At this time, early in the motion An even longer history of Aboriginal already successful in the white world. Cherbourg, Queensland Aboriginal picture industry, travelling shows entertainment entrepreneurship communities, plus professional setting up in tents, halls and outdoors, includes both individual and Today, this evaluation is often Indigenous musicians including opera particularly outside capital cities, were collective projects with a mixture of reversed, with the specifically south- 11 singer, Harold Blair, and cabaret artist, common, and probably more common artistic, cultural, financial and political east Australian Aboriginal cultural Georgia Lee (both later internationally in Australia than anywhere else, motives. For instance, the Wallaga production of that period read as known). according to the book, The Pictures Lake gumleaf orchestra toured inauthentic or kitsch. But it can be That Moved.iii widely during the 1920s, as did the seen just as plausibly as a completely Dancing, singing, fire, snake handling, Cummeragunja vaudeville troupe. authentic expression of contemporary and boomerangs flying through the Several Australian-made films had A photo in Buried Country, Clinton Aboriginality after well over a century auditorium over the heads of the already included Aboriginal themes or Walker’s book about Australian of relentless outside manipulation audience, clearly made it an exciting characters (though some were played Indigenous country music, shows and interference. and highly theatrical event. Drawing in blackface by white actors).iv Only the combined groups in the 1930s as much on vaudeville and cabaret six years later, Aboriginal boxer, Sandy before a banner with the father of The two projects featured in this 12 conventions as Aboriginal traditions, McVea, had a major role as offsider to entertainer, Jimmy Little, exhibition, with their pan-Aboriginal the production satisfied a huge the non-Indigenous star (and fellow in the front row. eclecticism, their accommodations appetite among non-Indigenous boxer) Snowy Baker, in the dramatic with and employment of non- Australians for attractive and feature, The Enemy Within. Jimmy Little’s parents were Indigenous people and means, and excitingly presented information vaudevillians who arranged travelling the focused resourcefulness of their about Aboriginal life. In 1951, the So, Karloan’s was not a fanciful entertainments to Aboriginal mission originators, projected an Aboriginal Princess Theatre seated over 2000, project, either in terms of the settlements. Little’s father, he said, presence into a wider world -- both and this unusual show played to full business idea itself, nor his wish, as ‘would also organise teams of our Indigenous and non-Indigenous -- than houses plus standing room for most an Aboriginal person, to be involved people to give concerts throughout they emerged from. of its short run, drawing around in the new medium. His problem was the district to raise funds for 12,000 people to five performances, being detained under the Act on the the mission’. Today they can give us a feel of the along with an enormous amount Point McLeay Mission where he was relatively small but expanding public of media attention. unable to fund his enterprise without According to historian, Gary Foley, social and aesthetic space shared by Government co-operation. the Onus brothers’ nephew, Bruce Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people However, well-publicised plans to McGuinness, staged shows based on around Melbourne fifty years ago, repeat it for the King (who died not While the Mission superintendent his uncles’ format in Melbourne into on the way to now. long after), and tour interstate and supported Karloan’s application, the 1970s. overseas evaporated. And public the Protector called it ‘ridiculous’. Virginia Fraser romanticisation of the Queenslanders His scorn cloaked the administrative Nevertheless, there are more ways July 2008 in the cast belied their actual aim of keeping people on missions than one to skin a cat, and Bill Onus’s situation. Most, including Jacob and reserves by suppressing lifelong activism for Aborigines, and i The Federation Jubilee Exhibition of 13 Chirnside, dubbed ‘The Chief’ outside employment opportunities. his wide association with people both Australian Art in the same year included some by newspapers, were, in effect, Such requests were ‘becoming Aboriginal and not, some of them Northern Australian bark paintings -- only one wards of the state. Under the 1939 frequent’, he complained to the communists, attracted the attention with a named author -- and copies of cave Queensland Aborigines Preservation SA Commissioner of Public Works. of Australian security organisations. paintings on masonite. Referenced in Djon Mundine in They are Mediatating: Bark Paintings and Protection Act, they needed ‘If one native be assisted it brings On their recommendation, in 1952, he from the MCA’s Arnott’s Collection, Museum permission to travel, or indeed act heaps of other requests.’ was denied a visa to enter America to of Contemporary Art, Sydney, 2008, p25. effectively on many other of their demonstrate boomerang throwing. ii Christobel Mattingly and Ken Hampton, own decisions. Similar social engineering legislation Aboriginal Literature Development Assistance existed in other states, including Not long after, Bill Onus sank an Association, in association with Hodder Unfortunately it’s not as hard Victoria where the 1910 Aborigines accident compensation payment & Staughton, Adelaide, 1988, pp76/125. as it ought to be to imagine the Protection Act served the same into a new manufacturing and retail iii The Pictures That Moved: A Picture History highhanded way in which Aboriginal purpose. Nonetheless, many business, Aboriginal

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