Chris Bell opened the evening with a Didgeridoo performance.
The Mawang Ball, held on Saturday night at the Gundagai District Ex-Services Club saw their biggest turnout yet with guest speaker Angeline Penrith, wowing the crowd of more than 120 with an excerpt of the stage play the Cake Man alongside some of her life story.
Angeline spoke with the Times post the 50 years of Deadly NAIDOC week events.
“I’m from Brungle. My Mother was raised in a tin hut down by the river.
“I started school in Brungle and Mum and Dad lived on Brungle Mission.
“At a young age, we moved to Sydney. My mum had already moved here, so she had moved back to have her children back on country.
“I was born in Griffith, so from that time, she cemented our place in Redfern, at a time where Redfern was becoming a hub as part of the land rights movement.
“Redfern was a pretty tough place to grow up in as a kid in the 80s and early 90s. It was the polar opposite to Brungle in a lot of ways. You’ve got the country life and then you’ve got a black radical suburb in the midst, in the heart of the city.
“So, you’ve got all the, what it is, to have the city around you and then you’ve got a very small area of First Nations people and with that brings living in quite run down conditions and being over policed.
“Those are the dangers, not the people. The dangers of the outsider community and how they see us.”
Angeline grew up at a time when government and authority were not welcome or needed at times.
This led to her life being impacted in a number of ways.
“It just opens your eyes to the systematic racism and the over policing of Aboriginal people. But I suppose where Redfern really influenced me is in self-determination, and through art, and black theatre.
“The history of black theatre, really from the legacy of the National Black Theatre, Redfern.
“But I was born a fair bit after that, but that legacy, because that’s really an extension of activism, how the National Black Theatre come about. So I suppose, the activism and the arts, and with the backbone of black self determination, because Redfern is famous for creating the first ever Aboriginal medical service, first legal service, the first breakfast clubs, and that was built by the Redfern Aboriginal community, and it wasn’t something handed to us by government. So out of that, through self-determination, we changed the face of Black Australia, in Australia, point blank period.
“That’s what I grew up in, and that’s the reason why I am where I am.
“My upbringing, the foundations of coming from humble beginnings, and family in Brungle had set that from the very beginning, but also Redfern ultimately shaped me as well, and really, what shaped me was the self determination, was the black community.
“That’s why I say, I can’t say that these white institutions, or the way they say, going the right way, because it was really communities, family and people that built me.
The people of Redfern had the ability and the drive to push on to establish what was needed at the time.
“They seen the need and they filled it. So they proved that closing the gap can happen within 4 years. Because that’s how much time, once they decided to dedicate to it, that it really took.
So when you talk about black self-determination, it really is the answer to closing the gap than most things. And the oppression and utter, sometimes despair of some living a black life within Australia.
“Brungle has a history. I mean, those two men that walked to Canberra. The First Nations art scene often referred to them.
“That is something that is yet to really be put up as well. I think they were the first to take their conditions to Parliament and walked there from Brungle.
“Really, the lineage is within communities, within Aboriginal people. There’s always been resistance since colonisation in one form, shape, or another.
“And really, resistance, and saying we deserve to be treated like humans.
It’s all of our responsibility, I believe, as Australians. It’s not just an Aboriginal problem. It should be everyone’s issue. Be able to take care of everyone here. We are all human beings.”
Angeline highlighted that she became a mother at a young age and this shaped who she is today.
“Yes, of course. Well, it’s something that I’ve always wanted, I wanted to be a mother. When you’re a young black woman, and in all good intentions, with much wisdom, I’m sure, it’s like, let that wait, you have time, etc, etc, etc, and I didn’t want to wait, but I didn’t want that to put me in a category that I couldn’t chase my dreams. So it just gave me more fire to go, but I can also work and follow my dreams and be a full rounded woman.
“Society often can peg you in a spot before you even get going, and so I just wanted to put that out there, like, you can have kids. Nothing is certain and you can change your circumstances. That is life. Motherhood is life.
Angeline’s performance showed her skill and training as an actress.
“I performed the epilogue from the play, The Cake Man, by Robert Merritt, which is about Cowra Mission and family that grew up there under the Act and made their way in the guise of a better life to Redfern, which is my story, and that was based on my grandparents.
“And now it’s a classic, they study it in theatre, like aboriginal theatre and stuff. I believe it’s the first ever aboriginal play to be printed in currency press.
“It is my father’s brother, he wrote it. When I lived at Brungle, my mum and dad were together.
It is meaningful in that sense because a lot of them would have been related or married in, and they would have known that family from Brungle.”
The Gundagai, Brungle and Tumut communities came together on the night to witness and celebrate community and see a wonderful performance from Angeline.
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