Black Arm Band

Black Arm Band is an Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) music theatre organisation.[1] The organisation was founded in late 2005 by Steven Richardson and has produced seven large-scale productions since its debut performance at the Melbourne Festival of the Arts in 2006 in addition to ongoing educational and development work in remote Aboriginal communities.[2] Members are drawn from around Australia and include both blackfulla and whitefulla musicians with diverse musical backgrounds. The organisation's name comes from a speech by former Australian Prime Minister John Howard who referred to a "black armband view of history".[3] Their first show, murundak (meaning "alive" in Woiwurrung), debuted at the 2006 Melbourne International Arts Festival and has since played around Australia and internationally in London,[4][5][6][7][8] and their second show, Hidden Republic, debuted at the 2008 Melbourne International Arts Festival, both festivals being under the artistic direction of Kristy Edmunds.[9][10]

In 2009 the new artistic director of the renamed Melbourne Festival, Brett Sheehy, continued the relationship with Black Arm Band, which saw the commissioning and presentation of the premiere productions of Dirtsong conceived and directed by Steven Richardson (2009), Seven Songs to Leave Behind (2010) and Notes From the Hard Road And Beyond (2011) - also both conceived and directed by Steven Richardson. The first was a celebration of preservation of Indigenous languages with Miles Franklin Award-winner Alexis Wright; the second an international collaboration by contemporary Indigenous singers and musicians including the legendary Gurrumul Yunupingu joined by Sinéad O'Connor, John Cale, Rickie Lee Jones and Meshell Ndegeocello; and the third saw Mavis Staples, Joss Stone, Emmanuel Jal and Paul Dempsey join Black Arm Band to celebrate protest music from the 1960s through to contemporary Indigenous songs of activism.