Black Theatre (Sydney) - Seeds Sown For Future Growth

Seeds Sown For Future Growth

In 1979 Christine Donnelly, a participant in the six week program, founded the Aboriginal Dance Theatre (ADTR) to serve the Redfern community. It is situated next to the Black Theatre site.

In 1980 Bostock and Bryan Brown received Script development funding from the Creative Development Branch of the Australian Film Commission for a documentary to be made from Bostock's script Here Comes the Nigger.

Barbara Aylsen : You already have one project floating with Gerry Bostock.

Bryan Brown : The project with Gerry is the first concrete movement I have made into another area. We worked together on a screenplay from Gerry's play "Here Comes the Nigger" which I want to shoot. I haven't yet had the opportunity to shoot it and I am still working out how I want to do it.

In 1982 The Cake Man starring Justine Saunders, Graham Moore and Syron, and directed by Syron, was invited to the International World Theatre Festival in Denver, Colorado and played to packed houses receiving widespread acclaim (despite bureaucratic and private company disinterest).

Merritt went on to become the first Aboriginal screenwriter to co-write a feature film "Running Man" (1982) and the first Indigenous screenwriter of feature film "Short Changed" (1986)

In 1984 Bob Merritt set up the Eora Centre for the visual and performing arts in Redfern, offering young Aboriginal people a comprehensive education. He filmed it in Eora Corroboree

In 1987 the First National Black Playwrights’ Conference was held under the artistic directorship of Brian Syron, thanks to a push from people like Chicka Dixon, Gary Foley and Rhoda Roberts.

Out of this came the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust (ANTT), established in Sydney in 1988.

In 1988 Carole Johnson was a foundation member and first director of the National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association (NAISDA). She played a major role in the training of Aboriginal and Islander dancers and actors in movement, dance and choreography.

I love it in the '90s how all these organisations get longer and longer names.

NAISDA is based on an idea of Johnson's, where young people would be taught traditional dance from their Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander elders while also studying a modern dance technique.

Johnson also played a pivotal role in the establishment in 1989 of the Bangarra Dance Theatre. She was founder and foundation member of the theatre which began in the Police Boys Club, Pitt Street, Redfern. The Bangarra Dance Theatre performed their first professional performance in 1990 in Brian Syron's feature film Jindalee Lady (1992), the first feature film to be directed by an Indigenous Australian.