Harley Mann wants us to think harder about what we do when we acknowledge Country, and to pay deeper attention when an acknowledgement is delivered at a public event.
He’s communicating this not in a lecture, but through circus and dance.
Isabelle Champagne-Chittick, Margot Mansfield and Harley Mann rehearsing new work Of The Land On Which We MeetCredit:Darrian Traynor
If you caught Arterial or Common Dissonance, remarkable works by Mann from the Na Djinang Circus he founded, you’d have seen the clear connection he makes between a contemporary dance-inflected spin on the artform, and echoes of the traditional ceremonies marked on these lands for thousands of years.
Wakka Wakka artist Mann’s connection to Country manifests in his intense physicality and the deep emotional resonance of his shows, which often feel like a pathway connecting “then” to “now”. Though Mann warns against applying a Western view of time to his work: “We live in a modern society where we have schedules and calendars, agendas and diaries, and you lose that connection to the old ways, and maybe connections to new ways too,” he says.
The theme of connection is central to his company’s latest work, a Deadly Fringe commission Of the Land On Which We Meet.
Isabelle Champagne-Chittick, Margot Mansfield and Harley Mann.Credit:Darrian Traynor
Mann wants to make us pause and take note of the acknowledgement of Country delivered at public events in Melbourne. To truly understand why we pay our respects to First Nations elders specifically.
“Often, it doesn’t come from wanting to engage with this idea of being connected to this place,” he says. Worse still is when it’s reframed to undermine its unique intent. “You see it in Scott Morrison’s acknowledgements on the telly (when) he also acknowledges the (war) veterans,” Mann says (the former prime minister did this again in his concession speech). “It’s almost like ‘All lives matter’ in the back there, underpinning it.”
Mann would like to see more people put their hearts into it, even if they run the risk of mucking up cultural protocols. “As long as you come from a place of really genuine listening and learning, I think it’s OK to make mistakes. As soon as we start vilifying people for trying, there’s no point in moving forward because we’ll never get better.”
Mann is aware that by interrogating the act of acknowledging Country, he might also tread on toes. “I’m young and learning, and I want to be able to make mistakes, too,” he says. “Don’t talk s–t and throw me under the bus. Teach me.”
As he sees it, thousands of years of tradition means we’re never the first nor the last to do what we do on this place. That idea feeds into the rhythm of the show. “The starting imagery is like a time-lapse,” Mann says. “All these spirits of people before and after are sitting in the same space and time.”
First Nations peoples have long played a vital role in the history of circus in Australia. Billy ‘Little Nugget’ Jones performed on horseback as a kid during the 1850s, and Con Colleano’s spectacular tightrope somersaults made him one of the biggest stars of the big top circuit in the 1920s, though he was often billed as being Spanish. Founded on the back of radical political activism during the 1970s, Circus Oz has showcased many incredible Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander performers, including Mann.
He’s joined in Of the Land On Which We Meet by Na Djinang ensemble member Isabelle Champagne-Chittick, the second-generation daughter of migrants, and Adelaide-based Time in Space Circus co-founder Margot Mansfield, whose ancestors were colonial settlers. The work explores these different ways of connecting to Country. “What everyone brings is a sense of actual commonality, rather than difference,” Mann says.
“Issy would say things about her background that felt much more connected to a First Nations way of thinking,” Mann says. “I grew up in a city and went to a very white school where I studied science, and she grew up in the country, much more connected to nature, going out and seeing the ocean. It’s ironic, almost, right?”
Ultimately, the physicality of circus is their common language. “It’s one of, if not the, clearest ways we communicate,” Mann says. “You know when your partner is pissed off at you, and when your mum is in love with you. They don’t have to say it, because your body language and tone, your energy and vibe transcend that, and our brains are designed to pick up on it.”
Of the Land On Which We Meet is at Trades Hall Common Rooms May 25to 28. www.melbournefringe.com.au
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