Kerry Johnson - August 2020 Artist of the Month
Warning: this article discusses suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, please seek help. Lifeline is available 24/7 on 13 11 14 or chat online here between 7pm and 12am.
Our August Artist of the Month is one of the Riverina’s most talented exports. This month we’re featuring the visionary Dancer and Choreographer, Kerry Johnson - an artist who both stems from and creates out of Griffith, and who has also worked with some of Australia’s leading musical acts, productions and festivals.
Kerry Johnson acknowledges the influences a regional upbringing in Griffith has had on her artistic passions and future career direction: “It’s made me the artist that I am. It’s solidified my identity as a Wiradjuri woman and where I fit in, not only on a national scale but also a mainstream scale, as an Aboriginal Artist.”
Following in the footsteps of her sister Rayma, at the young age of sixteen Kerry left Griffith and relocated to Sydney to attend the Aboriginal Dance Theatre Redfern. She experienced the juxtaposition between these two worlds: “It was a cultural shock, the change of environment, from small town to big city. But more so a cultural shock because I hadn’t seen so many Aboriginal people in the one place and doing what they were doing. It was a completely different environment to what the community was experiencing at the time in Griffith. The identity, the identifying was very different. If you can imagine – Redfern was the birth of political activism, so you have a lot of our organisations grow from Redfern. So all of a sudden I was coming from a very disempowered position in Griffith, to a very different atmosphere in Redfern. The world opened up in regards to the arts.”
While the Dance Theatre provided an excellent opportunity to work amongst like-minded creative individuals during her formative years, the experience has made Kerry want to help address the disadvantages facing regional youth: “I was away from home, away from Country, we just didn’t have the opportunities to do what we wanted in our own hometowns. That’s something I would like to certainly change going into the future by looking at building capacity in our own communities and not having young people, unless it’s their own choice, having to leave their families, because it can be a very isolating experience.”
Kerry’s children, nieces and nephews are talented in their own right, excelling in acting and dance. Kerry describes the unique feeling of being able to express oneself and perform with family: “It’s a feeling like no other. It’s almost like an extension of yourself. Because we do so much stuff together, my sister and myself, I really can tell the difference when I’m doing work with other people. There’s almost like an innate connection that we know when to start, when to stop. It’s almost like we’re all one. Our Cultural and artistic connection is one of blood and spirit. You only achieve that kind of connection from dancing with others for a very long time.”
Kerry explained how her family has faced tragedy losing her brother-in-law Russell Page, the Principal Dancer of Bangarra Dance Theatre to suicide, followed by the loss of her sister Rayma’s youngest daughter in 2013 at the age of 18 to suicide as well. She says, “The loss of my niece has really impacted that yet again, because we all danced before she passed. To lose someone so special to us and important in our family circle, we’ve had to rebuild those dynamics up again and I think things won’t quite be the same without her. We’re moving on and we’re discovering different ways of working.” Kerry’s sister Rayma created the Buuja Buuja Dance Company to honour her memory. The company was named Buuja Buuja, after the Wiradjuri word for butterfly, which she had a special connection to. Kerry has plans to incorporate Buuja Buuja Dance Company into Burrundi Theatre For Performing Arts to focus on young performers, and to offer a scholarship and resources for young people that don’t have the capacity to financially support themselves.
Kerry was an independent performing artist for 20 years before she transitioned to choreography. She got her first break during her time working on the Dreaming Festival, where Rhoda Roberts saw Kerry’s potential and hired her to choreograph upwards of 150 dancers at the following Dreaming Festival. Recognition of Kerry’s talents led to continued work on the festival circuit. The late Gavin Jones gave Kerry the opportunity to be resident choreographer for the Deadly Awards for four to five years, before the Abbott Government’s funding cuts led to the cancellation of the event.
Kerry’s combined education of studying dance at Aboriginal Dance Theatre Redfern and at NAISDA (then Aboriginal Islander Dancer Theatre, Glebe) influenced her style of choreography: “My choreographic capacity is very diverse, as is my performing capacity. We have the Indigenous Contemporary style that has come out of NAISDA, which is basically the Bangarra style. It is very founded in Traditional artforms, but then what you do is you fuse them and develop your own style of choreography from those different fusions. Other aspects that inspire that choreographic fusion are your lived experience and your understanding of Culture. My choreographic capacity goes across from contemporary through to hip-hop and I’ve even had to learn ballroom. I’ve choreographed for artists like Jessica Mauboy, Casey Donovan, Christine Anu and Shakaya. It’s the diversity of my capacity to choreograph that lets me be able to choreograph for those different artists and have a different style to give to the different artists.”
Kerry notes her time performing with Bran Nue Dae, written and directed by the late Jimmy Chi, as a career highlight, pivotal in changing her perception on forms of expression: “I did Bran Nue Dae in 1994 and toured with the second installment of Bran Nue Dae as a theatre production. That inspired me, that was a really big changer for me because I was able to see how story can connect with me as raw and simple, connect a grassroots community and how it inspires an identity and a culture around that community. I saw that with Bran Nue Dae, with Kuckles and The Pigram Brothers, all the music that came out of Bran Nue Dae. That kind of opened my world, in the sense of it doesn’t just have to be dance theatre, we can evolve through story and music. Bran Nue Dae really showed me the community element, and how culturally our songs, stories and our dances are all interconnected.”
As an artist who has dedicated much of her career to working with, and guiding children, she sees an emerging need for the next generation of performers to expand their skillset: “I kind of feel that in the current time and climate our young people need to have a diversity around their talents; being able to act, being able to sing and dance. It opens up a lot more opportunity. You may major in one particular area better than others, but you still know the technical aspect of all those different genres of creative arts.”
Her advice for the next generation of performers is “stay connected. The industry is a big entity on its own. Whether you’re staying within the First Nations sector, or whether you’re going mainstream, or whether you’re doing it all – our connection to who we are, as Aboriginal people, Sovereign people of this Nation, is at the core of what we achieve and how we achieve that. It is also very important to our own self-care. I would have to say given our families’ lived experience in the industry, self-care is becoming very important to our artistry. We need to be taking care of ourselves for that longevity and for our own health as artists.”
Kerry is the Artistic Director of Burrundi Theatre for Performing Arts, a newly established not-for-profit organisation currently working out of both Redfern and Griffith. She was inspired by the legacy of Redfern’s Black Theatre, which was prominent in the 1970s. “I really connect my artform and my identity really connects with grass roots community organisations. I see Burrundi having its place and role in Redfern, but I also see its place and role in Griffith and other regional areas. I really see the isolation that a lot of communities are living in and the lack of access to opportunity and the creative arts and Culture. So I’d really like Burrundi Theatre to change that, and really open up opportunity, connection and relationships, to work on relationships and collaborations with other communities outside of Sydney.”
Through Burrundi, Kerry is applying her wealth of talents back to her hometown of Griffith for the upcoming Yarruwala Wiradjuri Cultural Festival: “Yarruwala is a groundbreaking festival for Griffith. It’s come at a time when the Community needs inspiration. The young people need inspiration.” She says, “as soon as I was offered the position to be Artistic Director, that was in the forefront of my mind. I wanted to not only inspire the Community, but remind them of a legacy that the Community has through all the diverse families that live in Griffith.”
The festival has been organised by the Wiradjuri Community with a working partnership of many organisations including Griffith Regional Theatre, Leeton and District Local Aboriginal Land Council, Griffith Aboriginal Medical Service, Deakin University, Griffith Regional Art Gallery and Western Riverina Arts. The Griffith Regional Theatre, helmed by Raina Savage, is ensuring that the event is the largest in Griffith this year, and will have a presence not only as a major feature in Griffith, but right across the Western Riverina, despite the complex logistics involved with COVID-19.
Kerry’s festival programming is informed by the connection between the region’s past and present, and she’s developing a theatre production focusing on former Warangesda Aboriginal Mission, a place of deep significance to local Wiradjuri People. “I felt that the festival needed a historical context because Sunshine Super Girl is wonderful in celebrating the legacy of Evonne Goolagong Cawley, but what is the historical legacy of Wiradjuri People in that region? I really felt it needed to play a part of the festival otherwise it becomes disconnected. I’ve tried to connect the community with the festival so we have a role and a part to play in the festival, and I think that’s important – whenever you’re engaging any community there needs to be connection and opportunity.”
The importance of mental health care for the community at this time is at the forefront of her approach and has led her to introduce three days of healing grief and loss workshops amongst the other creative activities. “I’m partnering with another Aboriginal organisation. They will bring down two ladies who have a very long history of teaching in those areas, with healing grief and loss. I didn’t want to go in and teach the kids, without there being some emphasis on their confidence, self-esteem and the trauma they are currently living in with no foreseeable support from services. I see that there are a lot of issues around community support. I felt I had a sense of duty of care to the Community in general. It’s not just about going there, working with people, and expecting them to perform at a festival without considering what the Community is currently experiencing.”
Kerry sees the potential of the Festival to highlight the successes of Wiradjuri People, and looks to future possibilities: “I have done work in Sydney with a lot of different communities, a lot of different people, over the years of my career, but I really believe that there is a uniqueness that is yet to be seen and discovered, and to come out of Riverina. I believe there is such a richness in who we are, and our survival and our Culture. In Wiradjuri People there is uniqueness about who we are. I really believe in that coming out of this festival, and that’s why I had an obligation to my community and my region to give an opportunity for that to really shine.”
You will be able to experience Kerry Johnson’s talents first-hand in the upcoming Yarruwala Wiradjuri Cultural Festival which will offer events spanning across six locations in the Western Riverina. The festival program and tickets will be launched on August 29. You can follow Kerry’s other work over at the Burrundi Theatre For Performing Arts Facebook and Instagram pages.
Images and story by Camille Whitehead, Wednesday 12th August, 2020.
