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A haunting Yolngu songline from the Manggalili clan of north-east Arnhem Land runs through the electronic score to the Sydney Dance Company's latest production.
It seems unlikely — but it's not.
The unending ancestral story of a spirit lady who delivers the souls of the recently dead to the afterlife has been recited in the manikay (song) tradition for thousands of years by the Yolngu songmen.
The latest interpreter of the song is a relatively young singer-songwriter, who is best known as the lead singer of East Journey — a reggae-inspired saltwater band from Yirrkala.
"The story goes back to the time of beginning," Rrawun Maymuru says.
"In my world, when people passed away the spirit — Nyapililngu — would take them to the heavens. The song that I was singing [was] telling a great journey of spirituality."
Maymuru inherited custodianship of the story through his late father from his paternal grandfather, Narritjin Maymuru — a Manggalili clan artist, who depicted the spirit lady in bark paintings.
Maymuru's other grandfather was the late Dr Yunupingu, the lead singer of Yothu Yindi, a highly respected cultural leader and a former Australian of the Year.
Calling out to the dead
According to Yolngu cosmology, the ancestral spirit lady wanders the earth searching for the dead to guide their spirits to the afterlife, somewhere in the Milky Way.
As she walks, she sings out to the spirits of the dead to come out of the earth where they have been buried temporarily, urging them to prepare for the journey ahead.
Maymuru obtained permission from the Manggalili clan leaders to interpret the song — just as his grandfather did through his extraordinary bark paintings.
"That's where I got this strength to carry on his vision," Maymuru said.
"You try to tell people through painting, through arts, and that's what happened here — it's a bit of art, it's a bit of story."
The songline is now part of the music score for the Sydney Dance Company's latest production, Orb, currently on tour in Melbourne.
It was composed by Sydney electronic artist Nick Wales, a former member of the post-classical electronic group CODA.
"It was just magic to record, actually," Wales says.
"I put a bed down really quickly and then Rrawun came in and recorded really quickly.
"That was a really great sign ... The song feels like it's from nowhere and somewhere at the same time, it has this really beautiful ambiguity of place and time, which I think is really powerful."
Wales's collaboration with Maymuru began when he first heard the Manggalili man sing in the traditional manikay style.
"About six years ago I heard Rrawun singing at the Indigenous Music Awards in Darwin and I was with Chryss Carr, who's his manager," he says.
"And he started singing and I just got shivers. And I was like, 'Chryss, who's this guy?' It's just such a powerful connection to the spirit."
So when choreographer Rafael Bonachela later approached Wales to score his new dance work Ocho, for the production Orb, he knew he had already found the voice for it — in the deep tones of Maymuru.
Bonachela wanted the music reflect an almost divine, climactic moment — spiritual, if you like.
And Maymuru was the answer.
Songline remains unbroken
Even though it has been interpreted differently for Sydney Dance Company dance score, for the Manggalili clan the songline remains, like an eternal loop.
Maymuru is the heir to sacred cultural knowledge, which he has chosen to share, in a conscious act designed to continue the legacy of his grandfathers — both of whom engaged in cultural diplomacy through art.
"I said, 'I might put Nyapililngu in', just to tell them the story about the spirit, how beautiful she is from my perspective," Maymuru says.
"She is still waiting for me in the heavens, unknown heavens. Only the song knows — that's where the map is."
The score is just the beginning of Maymuru and Wales's artistic relationship — with plans for a project with more pop sensibilities in the pipeline.
"We're looking to record an album together in the next few months … it's a journey of discovery for the both of us," Wales says.
Topics: indigenous-music, electronic, music, arts-and-entertainment, dance, yirrkala-0880, nt, sydney-2000, nsw, australia