Churchlands: Newman College students’ performance promotes reconciliation

NEWMAN College arts students have performed an original theatre piece featuring Noongar language.

The school’s arts collective created Koort Kadadjiny Kadidjiny (Heart Learning), which explores Australia’s cultural history.

Students from years 7 to 12 participated in the performance at the Churchlands school’s auditorium.

It incorporated the Noongar language, original music, body percussion and digital projection of visual art, as well as an original didgeridoo composition by Phil Walley Stack.

Teacher Maree Grayden said it was a celebration of diversity, survival, transformation, and growth in the hope for reconciliation and a better future in the relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

“Heart Learning aims to bridge gaps of understanding in an effort to enhance cultural competency and cultural sensitivity in a view to promoting social change,” she said.

“The hopefulness embedded can help us to acknowledge and face our past, and present actions as a nation, hearing voices rather than silencing voices is essential in our hope for reconciliation.”