The Arts

Dancer of the Year

B-boy 2Ezy

B-boy 2Ezy (Isaac Parsons) was born in 1984 in Brewarrina, NSW. At the age of 16, he was inspired by the movie Breaking and began perfecting his moves with friends.

In 2001, he won the Under-18 Victorian Break Dancing Championship and was runner-up in the National Championship the following year.

He attended the Vibe 3on3® in Mildura in 2001 and won the event’s dancing competition. The team was so impressed with his skills that Isaac was invited to join the crew and he has been the 3on3’s break-dancing workshop coordinator ever since.

In 2005, B-boy 2Ezy moved to Sydney to begin studying at the NAISDA dance college. He has performed at several Deadly Awards, as well as The Dreaming festival, the YAAMA Festival, Ice-T, Grandmaster Flash and Yothu Yindi concerts, and has even performed in the ring before an Anthony Mundine world-title bout.

“Breaking has turned me into the person I am today and given me the confidence to try other things. I love giving people the opportunity to learn how to dance, just like someone did for me,” he says.

Nikki Ashby

Nikki Ashby is a descendant of the Narrunga and Kaurna nations in South Australia.

She has an outstanding professional background as a dancer, choreographer, director and performer.
Nikki has performed and worked with dynamic Australia companies, including Bangarra Dance Company and ADT, and has diverse dance styles, including contemporary Indigenous, hip hop, latin, African and jazz.
Leader, role model, director, choreographer and cultural educator, Nikki has worked with and performed for young people in remote communities around Australia and hosted hip hop master classes for dance companies and community youth groups throughout the country.

Currently Nikki is director for ‘The Movement hip hop crew’ dance theatre, based in Melbourne.

Wangeenga Blanko

Originally from Mission Beach in Far North Queensland, Waangenga has Murri and Scottish/English ancestry and started dancing at the age of eight.

After many notable dance achievements, including performances with NAISDA in Which Wei (2002), When the Dust Settles (2003) and Apu Kazi (2004), Wanngenga was asked to join Bangarra Dance Theatre after Stephen Page saw him perform in NAISDA’s end-of-year show.

Waangenga toured internationally with the Bangarra production Bush and nationally with Boomerang.
In 2006, Waangenga performed for other choreographers such as Vicky Van Hout in Wiradjourni and Meryl Tankard in Kaidan and was also a lead dancer for the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games.

Waangenga re-joined Bangarra in 2007, dancing in Clan and True Stories nationwide.
In 2008 Waangenga performed in Mathina and toured to Europe, the US and Canada with Rites and Awakenings.

In 2009, Waangenga toured to Europe with True Stories and appears in Bangarra’s special 20th Anniversary celebration, Fire – A Retrospective.

Yolande Brown

Yolande is a descendant of the Bidjara clan of the Kunja nation, central Queensland, and also shares Celtic and French origins.

A keen scholar, Yolande received the Australian Students’ Prize of Excellence, awarded to the top 500 Australian high-school graduates. With a passion for creativity, Yolande completed a C. Mus.A (AMEB) in piano performance and a BA (Dance) at the Queensland University of Technology.

Joining Bangarra in 1999, her company highlights include dancing “out bush” with the Pitjantjatjara and Yirrkala people, performing in Rites (a collaboration with the Australian Ballet, New York) and Corroboree (BAM Festival, New York). In 2004, Yolande was nominated by Dance Australia’s Critics' Choice as Most Outstanding Dancer and Dancer to Watch.

Yolande appeared nationally in the musical The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2002–04) directed by Nadia Tass. This highly acclaimed production enabled her to further explore her acting and singing talents in a principal role. Yolande enjoys contributing vocals to Bangarra soundtracks and last year she produced an EP featuring her original songs. She had a ball at this year’s Cracker Comedy Festival Sydney, singing jazz and cabaret and was thrilled to be an artist in this year’s Sydney Festival working in Kaidan – a collaboration between TaikOz, Meryl Tankard, Regis Lansac and dancers.

An advocate of awareness through education, Yolande has been a Guest Lecturer at QUT and was honoured to receive the QUT Outstanding Alumni Award for the Creative Industries, 2005.

Following Yolande’s outstanding performance in True Stories in 2007, critic Chris Boyd named her Dancer to Watch in the 2007 Critics’ Survey.

Yolande is looking forward to soon returning to her traditional homeland and sharing workshops with the community – a project supported by the Australia Council of the Arts.

Female Actor of the Year

Leach Purcell

Leah Purcell is one of Australia’s leading actors, with award-winning roles in theatre, film and television. In recent years, Leah’s portfolio has included a starring role in the film Lantana alongside Geoffrey Rush and Anthony La Paglia, and a stint in the off-Broadway hit The Vagina Monologues.

In 2003, Leah performed in the feature films Lennie Cahill Shoots Through and the multi-award-winning Somersault. In 2004 she won a Green Room award for Best Actress for her work in Beasty Girl: The Secret Life of Errol Flynn at the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

In 2004, Leah had a part in Nick Cave’s film The Proposition, and 2005 saw her shine in the acclaimed film Jindabyne. She then took on one of the most challenging roles of her career – as the then National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, in David Hare’s play Stuff Happens for Company B, Belvoir St Theatre.

In 2008, Leah won a coveted Helpmann Award for Best Female Actor in a Play for her role in The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table, written by Indigenous playwright and director Wesley Enoch. She also became the Artistic Director for ACPA (The Aboriginal Centre for the Performing Arts).

In 2009, Leah travelled to London where she appeared in the production When the Rain Stops Falling.

Marissa Gibson

Marrisa Gibson shot to stardom in 2009 following her role in Warwick Thornton’s film Samson and Delilah.
Marissa played the central role of Delilah in the film, which went on to win the Caméra d'Or award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

Marissa attended high school in Alice Springs, where she lives with her uncle, aunt and grandmother, Mitjili Napanangka Gibson, who also portrayed her grandmother in the film.

Marissa speaks three languages, Warlpiri, Luritja and English, and she is learning Japanese.
Previously, Marissa lived in Kintore where she experienced first hand the desolation of life in isolated communities that is portrayed in the film.

She put her acting wages towards a school study tour of Japan after filming finished.

Pauline Whyman

Pauline Whyman is from the Yorta Yorta nation and is based in Melbourne. She is one of our most versatile actresses whose distinguished career spans nearly two decades.

Pauline has appeared both internationally and across Australia in numerous stage and screen productions. Highlights of her stage work include the production of Stolen for Ilbijerri Theatre and Playbox Theatre, The Cherry Pickers for Sydney Theatre Company, and Windmill Baby for Yirra Yaakin Theatre. Pauline’s most recent stage appearance was in the Harold Pinter play The Birthday Party for Melbourne Theatre Company.

Pauline was also co-creator of the first Aboriginal clown troupe, The Oogadee Boogadee, for Melbourne Workers Theatre. During this period, Pauline performed three street shows a day then performed in Roger Bennett’s play Up The Ladder at night, as part of Sydney’s inaugural The Festival of The Dreaming. In 2002, her work was acknowledged by being awarded Best Achievement by a Victorian Indigenous Theatre Practitioner.

Pauline’s work in film includes roles in Richard Frankland’s Harry’s War and Aden Young’s The Order. Her most recent television guest role was Beverly in Foxtel’s Comedy Channel production Whatever Happened to That Guy? Pauline will soon feature in the upcoming film Shrunken Iris by Kamara Bell-Wykes.

In more recent years, Pauline’s passion for telling a yarn urged her to try her hand at writing and directing for both stage and screen. These recent works include the stage production of Funny Bones – A Sit Down Comedy, produced by Theatreworks. Pauline also wrote and directed her first short film Back Seat, which toured the festival circuit internationally and nationally, including the Melbourne International Film Festival, and was lnominated for a Human Rights in the Arts Award and broadcast on SBS in 2008.

Ursula Yovich

Ursula Yovich has emerged as one of Australian theatre’s most impressive young actors.

Ursula was named Best Actress for her performance in Capricornia at the 2007 Helpmann Awards. The awards recognise excellence in the many disciplines of Australia's live performance sectors, including theatre, musical theatre, comedy, opera, classical music and dance.

Ursula was also nominated for a Helpmann Award in 2006 for her performance in the Belvoir Street Theatre smash The Sapphires.

Ursula has a growing number of film and theatre credits to her name including Nailed, The Seven Stages of Grieving and roles in The Adventures of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and Little Ragged Bloss.
In 2006, Ursula appeared in the acclaimed film Jindabyne, and in 2008 she played a significant role in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia.

Male Actor of the Year

Aaron Fa'aoso

Before Aaron Fa’aoso was picked for the role of Eddie Gaibui in the acclaimed SBS drama Remote Area Nurse he worked as a sexual-health worker in Bamaga, an Indigenous community on Cape York.

Remote Area Nurse was Aaron’s first experience as an actor, and he has since taken to performing like a duck to water. He received both an AFI and a Logie Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role.

In 2006, Aaron appeared in the Queensland’s Koeemba Jdarra Performing Arts Company productions of Howie the Rookie (directed by Leah Purcell) and Njunjal the Sun. He also had a starring role in the powerful and confronting play Back Home, which he co-devised with fellow cast members, as part of the 2006 Sydney Festival.

In 2007, Aaron was nominated for the Graham Kennedy Award for outstanding new talent at the Logie Awards. That year also saw Aaron travel to Canada to reprise his role in Back Home.

In late 2007/early 2008, Aaron wowed audiences again, playing a tough Samoan cop in the gritty SBS cop drama East West 101 and he also appeared in the hit Channel Nine drama Sea Patrol.

Currently, Aaron can be seen in the feature film Subdivision.

Brandon Walters

Born in 1996 in Broome, Western Australia, Brandon Walters was plucked from obscurity when he was just nine-years-old by film director Baz Luhrmann to appear in the feature film Australia.

Luhrmann had been searching for an Aboriginal boy to play the role of “Nullah” for more than 12 months when one of the film’s casting directors saw Walters at a Broome swimming pool in 2007.

After attending acting workshops at Fox Studios, Walters agreed to join the film while on a camping holiday with his family and Luhrmann at Broome’s Eighty Mile Beach.

Brandon was then cast again by Luhrmann in a Tourism Australia advertising campaign, and the director described him as having “natural cinematic chemistry”.

Brandon won a Satellite Award for New Talent and received nominations for Best Young Actor at the Broadcast Film Critics Associate Awards and Most Promising Performer at the Chicago Film Critics Association Awards.

Luke Carroll

Sydney-based actor Luke Carroll is one of the most promising young acting talents in the country.

At only 27 years of age, Luke is somewhat of a stage veteran, having already appeared in a range of productions, from Conversations with the Dead to The Dreamers, Riverland to The Cherry Pickers.

For his first feature role as Dumby Red in the film Australian Rules, Luke was nominated for best supporting actor by the prestigious Film Critics Circle of Australia. The film received widespread critical acclaim after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in 2002.

This engaging young man has also enjoyed recent stints on television series, appearing in Channel Nine’s The Alice and the critically acclaimed SBS production Remote Area Nurse.

While Luke has savoured his success on the screen, in 2006 he returned to the theatre to play the lead role in Capricornia, Louis Nowra’s stage adaptation of Xavier Herbert’s compelling Australian novel of the same name.

In 2007, Luke completed work on the Australian feature The Tender Hook with Hugo Weaving and Rose Byrne, and appeared as a hospital intern in a seven-week guest role on the hit soap opera Home and Away. Luke also appeared alongside Cathy Freeman in the second series of the SBS travel show Going Bush.

In 2009, Luke appeared in the television show Heartbeat for two episodes and he also stars in Richard Frankland’s road comedy Stone Bros and appears in the film Subdivision.

Rowan McNamara

Rowan McNamara lives in Hidden Valley on the outskirts of the Alice Springs township.

He made his screen debut in this year’s critically acclaimed feature film Samson & Delilah, in which he played one of the two central roles.

He is a keen AFL footballer, a devoted fan of Essendon Football Club and has travelled Australia playing footy with his school.

Outstanding Achievement in Film

Fitzroy Stars: More Than a Game - John Harding & Dan King

John is a Kuku/Erub Aboriginal man from the Torres Strait Islands.

He is an experienced playwright, director and actor, as well as a founding member of Ilbijerri Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander Theatre Company and created its first play Up the Road in 1991.

In 1996, John wrote the first Aboriginal sitcom, The Masters, for SBS TV and was Artistic Director of that year’s Nambundah Festival.

John has been a ministerial adviser for the Victorian Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Senior Project Officer for the Aboriginal Education Department, National Aboriginal Employment Co-ordinator for the Australian Film Commission and Assistant Director for the 1989 National Black Playwrights' Conference.

His radio credits include Land Rights, Rally and Blackman and Sobbin, and his credits in television include Lift Off, Blackout, The Masters and the Indigenous current affairs program ICAM.

John wrote Fitzroy Stars, a documentary, directed by Dan King, about one of the first all-Indigenous football clubs, which was established in the early ’70s.

The film follows ex-player Troy Austin on his mission to resurrect the former club and along the way meets ex-players, many of whom went on to become community leaders, ATSIC Commissioners or to develop welfare and cultural organisations in Melbourne and across the state.

Aunty Maggie and the Womba Wakgun - Leah Purcell

Directed by Leah and written by Angelina Hurley, Aunty Maggie and the Womba Wakgun is based on a true story about Angelina's Aunty (Grandma Margaret Johnson) as happened in the Holland Park in Brisbane in the 1950s.
The heartwarming story revolves around Aunty Maggie who struggles to feed her three boys after swapping a box of tobacco for a rooster and some chooks.

Leah Purcell is also one of Australia’s leading actors, with award-winning roles in theatre, film and television. In recent years, Leah’s portfolio has included a starring role in the film Lantana alongside Geoffrey Rush and Anthony La Paglia, and a stint in the off-Broadway hit The Vagina Monologues.

In 2009, Leah travelled to London where she appeared in the production When the Rain Stops Falling.

First Australians - Rachel Perkins, Darren Dale & Bec Cole

Rachel Perkins is an Arrernte woman from the Central Desert region east of Alice Springs.
Rachel began her career with Imparja Television where she produced and directed Indigenous language and current affairs programming.

Since then she has worked with SBS as the Executive Producer of the Aboriginal Television Unit, working on productions such as Blood Brothers and Manyu Wana.

In 1993, Rachel established her own production company Blackfella Films and in 1995 she was awarded the first Indigenous scholarship to study producing at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School.

In 1996, Rachel joined the ABC as Executive Producer of the Indigenous Programs Unit where she initiated a number of new television series including Songlines, a nine-part series on black music.

Rachel made her directorial debut with the film Radiance in 1998 and followed this with her second feature, One Night Moon, in 2001.

Screened on SBS in 2008, the ground-breaking seven-hour documentary series First Australians chronicled the birth of contemporary Australia from the perspective of its first people.

The series was produced by Rachel’s company Blackfella Films, and joining her in directing, writing and producing the series were Indigenous film-makers Bec Cole and Darren Dale.

Samson and Delilah - Warwick Thornton

Cinematographer, writer and director, Warwick Thornton was born in Alice Springs and is a member of the Kaytej people of Central Australia. He began his career in Indigenous media as a teenager in Alice Springs where he worked as a radio DJ with CAAMA Radio. He then went on to train as a camera operator with CAAMA Productions, which led to his lifelong passion for capturing unique Indigenous images.

In the early ’90s he became the first Aboriginal person to graduate from the Australian Film and Television School when he was awarded his Bachelor of Arts in Cinematography, paving the way for many others to follow.

The many short films and documentaries to his credit include the drama Payback, the short film My Bed, Your Bed and documentaries Photographic Memory and Willigan’s Fitzroy. Warwick was also the Directory of Photography for the feature film Radiance.

In 2005, Warwick’s film Green Bush screened at the Sundance and Edinburgh Film Festivals and was awarded the Panorama Award for Best Film at the Berlin Film Festival.

Warwick was also awarded the prestigious Dendy award for Film Excellence at the Sydney Film Festival in 2005.

Warwick’s first feature film Samson and Delillah, was released earlier this year and has been the filmmaker’s most successful production to date.

Filmed in and around Alice Springs, the film has been described as a “survival love story”, centering on the journey of teenagers Samson and Delilah, played by Rowan McNamara and Marissa Gibson.

The film garnered widespread acclaim at home and abroad and has won several awards including the 2009 Cannes Film Festival Caméra d'Or, and the Audience Award at the 2009 Adelaide Film Festival.

Outstanding Achievement in Literature

Alf Taylor

Alf Taylor is a leading Australian writer, specialising in poetry and short fiction.

Born in Perth in the late 1940s, he spent his younger years with his family in Perth, then joined his brother in New Norcia Mission. Alf spent the rest of his childhood there. As a young man he worked around Perth and Geraldton as a seasonal farm worker. He then joined the armed forces and was based at various locations around Australia. Alf then left the armed forces and went home. After a marriage, seven children (only two of whom survived) and a divorce, Alf Taylor found his voice as a writer and poet... although it is a gift he believes he was born with.

His work has been published in many magazines, including Westerly, Overland and Southerly, anthologies and in his collections, Singer, Songwriter (1992; republished Rimfire, 2000), Winds (1994) and Long Time Now (2001), all published by Magabala.

Jared Thomas

An accomplished writer, Jared lectures in art, communication and literature. Jared’s play Flash Red Ford toured Uganda and Kenya in 1999 and his play Love, Land and Money featured at the 2002 Adelaide Fringe Festival.

Jared’s novel Sweet Guy is shortlisted for the 2009 South Australian People’s Choice Awards for Literature. Jared is writing his second novel Calypso Summers as part of his PhD at Adelaide University, mentored by acclaimed Jamaican writer Olive Senior. In 2009 BBC Radio will feature a 30-minute radio documentary about Jared's writing of Calypso Summers.

“I feel most at peace and comfortable when I am writing and savour the responsibility of representing Aboriginal experience and aspirations. I especially enjoy communicating with young people through my work and enjoy mentoring aspiring creative writers and academics,” Jared says.

Lorraine McGee-Sippel

Lorraine McGee-Sippel is a descendant of the Yorta Yorta people from the Murray-Goulburn region on the Victorian–NSW border.

Lorraine began writing in the 1990s and her work has appeared in numerous anthologies and publications. In 2001, her autobiography The Best Part was shortlisted for an Emerging Writer with an unpublished manuscript at Varuna Writing House, Katoomba, NSW.

In the same year she was successful in winning one of the first Indigenous Mentorships with ASA. She was shortlisted for the David Unaipon Award, part of the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, in 2006 for Hey Mum What's a Half-Caste? and again in 2007 for Toots.

In 2008 she received the prestigious Inaugural Yabun Elder award for her contribution to Reconciliation.

Lorraine was separated shortly after birth from her Aboriginal mother and at six-weeks-old she was adopted by a non-Indigenous family. Her writing is in response to the pain of not knowing her true cultural identity until 1981, when she met her mother.

She is currently writing about her personal journey and has contributed towards many publications, including Steppin' Out and Speakin' Up, Many Voices and Life in Gadigal Country.

Minmia

Well-known in Australia and internationally, Minmia is an Aboriginal woman from the Wirradjirri (Wiradjuri) nation of New South Wales. She is a carrier of the traditional women's Lore/law of the Wirradjirri (Wiradjuri) people. She is an Aboriginal Elder, spiritual healer, educator and an amazing storyteller and gifted writer. Her latest book is Under the Quandong Tree.

Minmia is also known for her artistic abilities through her nationally and internationally acclaimed artworks, which are held in many private collections throughout the world.

"I want to bring back thinking places. I want to bring back the songs. I want to bring back the stories. I want to bring back the sense of belonging. I want to help with the healing. That’s what I want.”

Outstanding Achievement in Television

Living Black - SBS

Living Black is SBS TV's primetime national Indigenous current-affairs program.

In 2002, Karla Grant, who presents Living Black, developed the concept as Executive Producer of SBS’s Indigenous Media Unit, and the program first aired in 2003.

Karla previously worked on SBS Indigenous program ICAM.

Karla is passionate about giving Indigenous Australians a voice in the media and believes that Living Black successfully fosters a better understanding among all Australians about the plight of Indigenous people.

Other members of the Living Black team include video journalist Kris Flanders, who has worked in the show since its inception, journalist Allan Clarke, researcher Alice Mulheron and Production Manager Laura Grace.

The Marngrook Footy Show - NITV

The Marngrook Footy Show launched in 2007 and immediately found an audience among both Indigenous and non-Indigenous AFL fans.

Each week Grant Hansen and co-host Gilbert McAdam, along with news presenter Leila Gurruwiwi, look at who’s in, who’s out, who won and who lost. The team is also joined by guest stars – regular panel members include Ronny Burns, Derek Kickett and Alan Thorpe – and every week they profile a former player and new, up-and-coming players.

The show’s popularity has soared to even greater heights in 2009. The show appeals to AFL fans who have tired of commercial television-style pranks and skits and just want to watch people talk football.

For the past 11 years, Grant has hosted the award-winning Marngrook AFL Footy Show radio program and was the first Indigenous AFL caller.

Message Stick - ABC

Message Stick is a half-hour TV program about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lifestyles, culture and issues. It features profile stories, interviews, video clips, short films and cooking segments and provides a slot for special half-hour Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander documentaries to be shown. It allows Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to tell their stories in their own way.

The program delivers articulate, contemporary human stories from around the country and features engaging, inspirational local characters, giving audiences intimate access to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lifestyles, perspectives and aspirations.

Message Stick is also hosted by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Past presenters have included Rachael Maza, Kelrick Martin, Deborah Mailman, Aden Ridgeway and Trisha Morton-Thomas.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander filmmakers from around the country are also employed on a freelance basis to produce stories.

The Barefoot Rugby League Show

The Barefoot Rugby League Show is a 90-minute panel-based show with a live audience, which features weekly NRL match highlights, profiles of Indigenous NRL players and coverage of regional and junior competitions in NSW, Qld and the Northern Territory. The show also features yarns from local communities and junior Rugby League teams and their players.

Guests, both on the panel and via live broadband crosses, keep the audience informed and entertained about the game of Rugby League, from the grassroots through to first-grade NRL.

The show, which launched in 2008, is hosted by Gadigal Information Service’s Brad Cooke and former NRL player Tony Currie.

Outstanding Achievement in Theatre or Live Performance

Bangarra Dance Theatre - Stephen Page

Bangarra Dance Theatre was founded in 1989 by Carole Johnson, an African-American dance leader who was a founding director of NAISDA College (National Aboriginal and Islander Skills Development Association).

Bangarra's vision is to provide opportunities for Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists to explore, express and present the identity of Australia's Indigenous cultures through dance and theatre performances.
Bangarra means 'to make fire' in the Wiradjuri language of New South Wales.

Stephen Page, was appointed artistic director in 1991 and in 1992 created the company's first full-length work, Praying Mantis Dreaming. Under Page the company developed a particular style of performance that drew on both traditional and urban Aboriginal cultures.

Since Praying Mantis Dreaming, Bangarra has presented numerous works by Page, as well as works by Bernadette Walong, Frances Rings and Elma Kris, some of them co-choreographed with Page. Landmark productions include Rites (2007), a collaboration with the Australian Ballet choreographed by Page, and Awakenings, the Indigenous section of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games’ opening ceremony.

Bangarra's international acclaim began with a 16-city sell-out tour to the US in 2001. In 2002, the company appeared at the Monaco Dance Forum, in 2004 it returned to the United States, performing in New York and in Washington by special invitation, in 2005 it toured to Japan and New Zealand and in 2006 to the United Kingdom. In 2008, the company toured to North America with Awakenings, a two-part program, featuring Boomerang and Brolga, and performed Rites with the Australian Ballet in Paris and London.

In 2009 Bangarra Dance Theatre celebrates 20 years of bringing its unique, exciting and inspirational dance theatre to Australia and the world. Fire – A Retrospective features the most memorable and potent elements of the company’s repertoire during this extraordinary and dynamic artistic period.

Muttacar Sorry Business- Yirra Yaakin

A collaboraitve produiction by the Yirra Yaakin Theatre and the Insurance Commission of Western Australia, Muttacar Sorry Business is a unique performance that tackled the high incidence of road trauma among Indigenous communities.

The production, which has toured widely, addresses key elements such as alcohol, risk-taking behaviours and overcrowding that, combined with specific social issues, create a tragically high level of road trauma among Indigenous populations.

Yirra Yaakin calls this Kutta Kutta, Aboriginal issue-based theatre, where the message becomes the strength of the play, rather than a focus on props, setting and costumes.

The project involves Aboriginal people in all stages of the creative and administrative process. Muttacar Sorry Business stars Kylie Farmer, Heath Bergersen, Ian Michael and Shakara Walley. The play is designed to tour to any venue with a set constructed in less than 20 minutes.

Sydney New Years Eve Fireworks - Rhoda Roberts

A member of the Bundjalung nation, Wiyebal clan of Northern New South Wales and South East Queensland, Rhoda was one of 24 Australians selected as Creative Directors to the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG).

For the Sydney 2000 Olympic Arts Festival, she was also co-creative director with Stephen Page of Tubowgule, the official opening ceremony of the Festival. Her other role with She also had a part-time role with SOCOG as Indigenous Cultural Advisor.

Rhoda was Artistic Director of The Festival of the Dreaming, 1997, the first of four Olympic Arts Festivals. Well known for her work with SBS television as a journalist and presenter for the current-affairs program Vox Populi, she has also worked for Network Ten and ABC Radio as a producer and journalist.

Rhoda has written and produced several documentaries, and she was the first Aboriginal person to host a national prime-time, current-affairs program. She continues her radio work as reporter and presenter of the national music program Deadly Sounds.

Her involvement in the arts is extensive. She was a co-founding member of Australia's first national Aboriginal theatre company, the Aboriginal National Theatre Trust (ANTT), and as an actor/producer and director, she continues to work in theatre, film, television and radio.

Rhoda is currently the Festival Director of The Dreaming festival, and in 2008 she became creative director of the 2008 Sydney New Year’s Eve, one of the biggest and most watched New Year’s pyrotechnic shows anywhere in the world.

Rhoda brought a uniquely Indigenous perspective to the legendary harbour show with the unifying theme, which was tagged ‘Creation Storm’.

The spectacular show featured traditional smoking ceremonies to cleanse the harbour, 55 illuminated boats in a Harbour of Light Parade and special welcome messages and images that were projected onto the bridge pylons of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The Dreaming - Rhoda Roberts

The Dreaming is a vibrant, exciting and valuable destination where local, national and international audiences look forward to their annual ceremony time along with the most comprehensive showcase of Indigenous arts from across the country and around the world.

The three-day and four-night festival features performing arts venues, bars, ceremony grounds, traditional healing, galleries, rituals, campfires, story cycles and a mass of stalls, workshop venues and food outlets.

Presented by the Queensland Folk Federation, and under the artistic direction of Rhoda Roberts, the program also features film and literature components, performing arts, new media and digital technologies, food and wine fare, comedy, ceremony, exhibitions, performance artists, physical theatre, visual arts, craft workshops, music program, street performers, musicals and a youth program.

Musical guests at the 2009 festival included Casey Donovan, Adam James, Max Judo, Street Warriors, Archie Roach and Shellie Morris among many more.

Visual Artist of the Year

Destiny Deacon

Destiny Deacon was born in 1957 of K'ua K'ua and Erub/Mer peoples.

She creates uncanny, beautiful, frightening and funny vignettes of contemporary life from her domestic surrounds. For many years, she has photographed her family and friends in staged scenarios augmented by props and costumes. Recurrent themes include landscape, portraiture, narrative and phantasmagoria. Deacon often incorporates her 'Aboriginalia' and black 'dollie' collections to illustrate these concerns. Dolls are given personality and life within melodramatic arrangements and Deacon's trademark 'blak' humour.

Destiny began taking photographs in 1990 and exhibited her work that same year. In 1993, she held her first solo exhibition, Caste Offs, at Sydney’s Australian Centre for Photography and participated in Can't See for Lookin' – Koori Women Educating at the Access Gallery, National Gallery of Victoria and Australian Perspecta 1993 at the Art Gallery of NSW.

Destiny exhibited her work extensively in 1994 in exhibitions including Blakness: Blak City Culture!, An Eccentric Orbit: Electronic Media Art from Australia, Urban Focus: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art from the Urban Areas of Australia and Tyerabarrbowaryaou II. She also held two solo exhibitions, My Boomerang Won't Come Back and Smiling Dangerously, that same year.

Destiny held the solo exhibition No Fixed Dress in conjunction with the Melbourne Fashion Festival in 1997, and exhibited in both Lawyers, Guns & Money at the Experimental Art Foundation, Adelaide, and Inya Dreams (part of the Festival of the Dreaming, Olympic Arts Festival). She held the solo exhibition It Won't Rub Off Baby!: New Work at Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi in 1998, as well as participating in Ceremony, Identity and Community at Flinders Art Museum, Adelaide, and the on-line exhibition Facing It at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington. Destiny also works with video, and is a writer, broadcaster and performer. She was raised in Melbourne and lives in Brunswick, where she works from her living room/studio.

Jenny Fraser

Jenny Fraser is a Digital Native working within a fluid screen-based practice. Her work is regularly exhibited and screened internationally, including ISEA/Zero1 in San Jose and the Interactiva Biennales in Mexico. She is a celebrated artist, recently receiving an honourable mention at the 2007 imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival in Toronto.

Because of the diverse creative mediums she uses, much of Jenny’s work defies categorisation. More recently her work takes iconic and everyday symbols of Australian life and places them in a context that questions the values they represent. With a laconic sense of humour she picks away at the fabric of our society, exposing contradictions, absurdities and denial.

Jenny is interested in refining the art of artist/curating as an act of sovereignty and emancipation. She is a spearhead for Aboriginal Media Arts, founding cyberTribe online Gallery in 1999 and the Blackout Collective in 2002. More recently she was the first Aboriginal Curator to present a Triennial exhibition in Australia: ‘the other APT’ coinciding and responding to the Asia Pacific Triennial, which was then accepted for inclusion into the 2008 Biennale of Sydney.

She has travelled extensively and completed residency programs from remote communities in Queensland and the Northern Territory, to the Rocky Mountains in Canada and also Raw Space and New Flames in Brisbane.

Judy Watson

In 1990 Judy Watson was able to fulfil her life-long dream of researching her Aboriginal heritage by travelling to her grandmother's country of North West Queensland.

A direct descendant of the Waanyi clan, Watson was born in 1959 at Mundubbera in the coastal hinterland of Queensland. She grew up in Brisbane and attended the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education, Toowoomba, where she gained a Diploma of Creative Arts in 1979.

After moving to Hobart in 1980 she graduated from the University of Tasmania in 1982.

Subsequently, Watson lectured at the Townsville College of TAFE and tutored at the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education.

In exploring her background, Watson encountered many isolated Aboriginal artists, and she has assisted them in gaining access to art facilities.

She has had numerous appointments throughout Australia as an artist-in-residence, some of which involved establishing lithography workshops and courses.

As winner of the 1995 Moët & Chandon Fellowship, Watson travelled to France in 1996; she later exhibited in Paris. She was also included in the 1997 Australian exhibit at the Venice Biennale.

Ricky Maynard

Ricky Maynard was born in Launceston, Tasmania, in 1953. He is a self-taught photographer who initially began work in the industry as a darkroom technician at the age of 16. In 1981 he undertook a photography course at Hobart Technical College, Tasmania, to further his knowledge of chemistry and optics.

Maynard worked as trainee photographer at the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), Canberra, from 1983, and studied photographic optics at Reid TAFE College, Canberra, in 1984. He was selected as one of the photographers of the After 200 Years project in 1985 and worked as the Aboriginal Arts Development Officer at the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, Hobart in 1987.

Maynard was employed as a contract photographer for AIATSIS from 1989 and first exhibited his photographs in Narragunnawali at the Canberra Contemporary Art Space that same year. In 1990 he was the recipient of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board Grant from the Australia Council, which enabled him to undertake a year's full-time study in New York.

From 1990 to 1993, Maynard's photographs were included in many high-profile exhibitions at the Queensland Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Australia and Stills Gallery, Sydney. Brisbane that same year. In 1992 he established a freelance business, Jollygood Productions Studio, in Adelaide.

Maynard returned to Sydney in 1995 as artist-in-residence at the University of New South Wales. Further exhibitions followed at the Manly Art Gallery and Museum and the Casula Powerhouse in Sydney, and also at the Horsham Regional Art Gallery, Vic. In 1997, Maynard received the Australian Human Rights Award for Photography.

He is a founding member of M.33 Photoagency, Melbourne. Earlier this year, a collection of Maynard’s work was displayed in the exhibition More Than My Skin.

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