Performing Indigenous Identities on the Contemporary Australian Stage, written by Australian academic Dr Susanne Julia Thurow, is a new addition to scholarly works on indigenous performing arts in Australia. It is a brave scholar who takes up the challenge of grappling with the complexities of a practice steeped in historical traditions and performed on contemporary stages. The point of difference for Thurow from the previous works on this subject is a consideration of this historiography with a focus on the impact of cultural protocols and the devising process in cross-cultural contexts on Indigenous Australian theatrical works (p. 1). Such impacts include cultural recuperation and reinvigoration, and an acknowledgement of the role of indigenous epistemologies and ontologies in theatre-making practices.
This is a densely written and deeply thoughtful study by Thurow on the multiplicity of intersections between contemporary theatre practice, indigenous cultural values and subject positions. This book is written for an academic audience as the language privileges scholarly discourse and assumes that the reader has read previous academic works on the subject by Maryrose Casey and Helen Gilbert. This approach may inhibit access for indigenous theatre-makers and arts practitioners in the field.
What Thurow adds to current knowledge in the field is a comprehensive review of stage works over the last twenty years, highlighting emerging themes and aesthetic trends. That said, this study sadly does not privilege or feature the indigenous voice. There is no mention of indigenous scholarly work in the field of Performance Studies and many of the quotes provided by indigenous theatre-makers are referenced from other sources. Only one indigenous theatre practitioner, Wesley Enoch, is heavily featured and this is in the second case study. As an indigenous theatre-maker and scholar, I find this deeply disappointing.
In coming to grips with such a rich and complex practice, and after a fifteen-page introduction, Thurow organizes her analysis into four chapters, ‘Culture and Historical Context’ and ‘Contemporary Indigenous Australian Theatre’, and a chapter each for two case studies, Scott Rankin's the Namatjira Project (2012) , and Wesley Enoch and Anita Heiss's I Am Eora (2012). In contextualizing race relations in Australia, Thurow highlights many of the challenges that indigenous peoples have experienced under colonial occupation and the subsequent subjugation of native voices, culture and society. But far from a history lesson this book quickly moves into a discussion of current theories that privilege indigenous ways of knowing, seeing and doing, drawing on the works of indigenous Australian scholars such as Aileen Moreton-Robertson, Marcia Langton, Iren Watson and Mick Dodson. Thurow shows an adept understanding of indigenous culture and philosophies and how they manifest in everyday lives of indigenous peoples in Australia.
This book would be of interest to both indigenous and non-indigenous scholars in the fields of indigenous, postcolonial, literary, theatre and performance studies. The two case studies may also have relevance to scholars of feminist studies as the works discussed involve men in creative leadership roles, and foreground indigenous male identities onstage.
The main merits of this book are in the insightful, intelligent and considered conversations Thurow presents on collaborative theatre-making, cultural considerations (protocols) for working with indigenous stakeholders, and, more broadly, the representation of subjugated identities on Australian stages. Thurow's clear and concise construction of ideas is held together by a rigorous and highly skilled understanding of scholarship and a deep engagement with the indigenous experience. Despite the exclusion of indigenous scholarship, Thurow offers a comprehensive study of indigenous theatre in Australia while extending that discourse to include collaborative works by non-indigenous theatre-makers.
