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Click below to read about some of the amazing stories that make up Territory
TERRITORY is a multi media journey into the mythological world of the Aboriginal peoples of Australia. Set in the ancient Dreamtime land of the Northern Territory of Australia stories of the Aboriginal creator ancestors and the land forms they inhabit are brought to life through spectacular projected imagery, storytelling and live musical performance. TERRITORY completely immerses the audience in the experience of being in Australia's Dreamtime landscape. Breathtaking footage of Australia’s wildlife and world heritage listed areas including Kakadu National Park and Uluru–Kata Tjuta National Park make TERRITORY an unforgettable visual experience.
TERRITORY features the musical compositions and live performance of Ash Dargan, a member of the Larrakia tribe in the Northern Territory and one of Australia’s premier indigenous Didgeridoo performers and recording artists. Ash’s music is a rhythmical dialogue between the spirits of the land and our own innate sense of what is culturally known as the living spirit, that which connects us to all life in the natural world. In performance Ash uses digital recordings of nature collected throughout the Northern Territory. These recordings of birdcalls, crickets, frogs and environmental sounds build one upon the other creating the textures and feel of each track. The music of TERRITORY really pulses with the living spirit of Australia.
The visuals
inTERRITORY represent
two years of filming on location throughout the Northern Territory
from the Top End down south to the
Red Center. Featuring footage of the Northern Territory’s
most well known natural rock formations, wildlife, cultural rock
art and
waterfalls TERRITORY showcases
the best of what people travel the world to see.
You will feel yourself at Uluru surrounded by giant red rocks
and the Australian desert. Take a dive into the Wetlands of Kakadu
National
park for an up close meeting with its incredible bird life and
salt water crocodiles, stand in the Valley of the Winds at Uluru-Kata
Tjuta
National park in the first light of morning and soar on the wings
of eagles over the land of the Dreaming.
Dreamstones
A sacred area of piled, rounded rocks surrounded by a protective
ring of mountains like a snake curled around its eggs.
This Dreaming area near Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory is
a sacred Dreaming
site of the Walpiri people. Ash lived in the local area
for a year in 1995 and visited this site often. He would sleep on top
of the
highest rock formation and experience many dreams of a
very surreal nature. After a few of these experiences Ash realized
he was dreaming
what the stones were dreaming. This visual piece and musical
composition is based on the visions he had during these visits.
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Through The Eye of
the Eagle
Aboriginal law in Kakadu states that Marrawuddi the Eagle takes
the souls of the departed into the sky world where the ancestral
spirits
live. First, Eagle takes the souls on one last flight over
their homelands. This piece begins with an eagle eye increasing
in size
until it swallows the entire view. This represents the viewer becoming
the eye of Grandfather
Eagle. From that moment on the viewer becomes the spirit flying
over the land. This piece was written in honor of Ash's Grandmothers
passing.
Walkabout
In the Aboriginal way it is believed the spirit of the land calls to
the soul of a person to share sacred Journeys at different
times during a persons life. This is called a Walkabout. During the
Walkabout
a person's soul is renewed from a constant connection with
the earth. The Walkabout offers true freedom, spiritual renewl and
the shared
knowledge of the power places visited on the journey. Filmed
on location at the West MacDonald Ranges in Alice Springs, and the
red deserts
approaching Uluru in Central Australia. The Didgeridoo rhythm
in Walkabout is that of person walking through this country while
the
trumpet sounds represent a person calling out to the spirits
of the land as they approach new areas.
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Invoking the Spirit
To walk this ancient Dreamtime land we must walk with its spirits.
We must honor their stories, and we must call to them.
Written to honor the tradition of the Song Men who have renewed
Australia's
living spirit through song and corroboree (ceremony)
for thousands of years. The Song Men know the songs of every living
thing
in their
world. Singing these songs will invoke the spirits of
the land to come and share there knowledge with us.
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MI MI
Mi's are shy spirits that live in the rock country around
the Arnhem Land escarpment. They are said to be 20
feet high and
very thin and fragile so they only come
out on very still nights. The traditional Elders tell us the MI MI's taught
people how to hunt and dance and paint on the rock walls. Mi
Mi's join many beings painted on
the rock walls in some of the oldest surviving rock art in the
world
in Kakadu National Park. Some are said to have journeyed
from
the stars. In this song the
vocal sounds used on the Didgeridoo are the spirits communicating
to one another in the stillness of night.
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Wetlands
Of all the sounds of nature the Wetlands has the greatest
symphony. Home to the Jabiru, Brolga, Sacred Kingfisher,
Magpie Geese and many more species
of birds,
the wetlands are host to the melodies of earths greatest songsters.
The rhythm Ash plays for Wetlands was conceived while
watching and listening to
the abundant
wildlife in the Wetlands of Kakadu National Park during the wet
season. The movement and calls of the birds are mimicked
through the Didgeridoo.
The bird calls used
throughout this song took many years
to master.