Performers on mission to raise awareness about Black War with A Tasmanian Requiem
Updated
A group of Aboriginal and non-Indigenous Tasmanians are using a requiem concert to raise awareness about the 1800 frontier conflict, the Black War.
It is estimated 200 colonists and 900 Aboriginal people died in the early 1800s as colonists tried to clear the state of its Indigenous inhabitants.
The concert, A Tasmanian Requiem, will play at the Theatre Royal and the creators hope it will spark awareness in the community about the past and encourage reconciliation.
The story is told using music, Aboriginal words and a film made by Tasmanian Aboriginal woman Julie Gough.
"What's happened here has been the attempted genocide of more than 5,000 Aboriginal people that were here until the 1830s," Ms Gough said.
"At least that many, we could have been double or triple that, it's hard to know."
The Indigenous survivors from the Black War were sent to live on Bass Strait islands such as Flinders.
While Tasmania has moved on from a past where some people denied that Aboriginal people still exist, the fact there was a war is rarely discussed.
'It was a war as significant as the world wars'
Producer and co-writer Frances Butler said it was time for Tasmania to "grow up a bit".
"To say publicly this happened — acknowledge it, atone for it," she said.
"I think in all of that there needs to be a moment at which to stop and [collectively] grieve for what's happened."
Historian Henry Reynolds said the war is not well covered in the current school curriculum and he wants that to change.
"If you compare it with what we're taught about the wars fought overseas then it's very very inadequate," he said.
"It was a war, a serious war, it was a war that saw a great many people killed, therefore it was a war as significant as the world wars.
"But above all it was a war about Tasmania in Tasmania, and I think it is therefore our most important war."
Will the wider community listen?
Requiems are traditionally Catholic masses that mourn the dead.
A Tasmanian Requiem is a modern performance which combines videos of ancient rainforests and kangaroos as the performers sing and play.
The performers are a mix of Aboriginal people and non-Indigenous musicians.
Helen Thomson, a soprano and composer of the requiem, said they had created a space where the Tasmanian narrative around the Black War and its aftermath could be revisited properly.
"We need to move forward ideally in a spirit of celebration of Tasmanian Aboriginal culture," she said.
But as the arts community commemorates the Black War with the Tasmanian Requiem, will the wider community listen?
Topics: indigenous-aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander, unrest-conflict-and-war, death, performance-art, tas
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