Queensland Government
Department of Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services
Boy with didgeridoo

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students from across Queensland joined about 1500 young performers featured in this year’s Creative Generation – State Schools Onstage show.

They came to Brisbane from as far as Mornington Island and Weipa to dance and sing in a two-hour performance at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre on 15 and 16 July. It was the culmination of five months of rehearsals.

Choreographers Jason Guivarra-Jia, from the Weipa campus of Western Cape College, and Chris Sheriff, from Brisbane Bayside State College, worked with the students to create an item called Our Spirit.

Our Spirit was opened by Year 12 Oakey State High School student William Haupt, playing the didgeridoo, and featured Noel Bartman, also from Oakey, 11 students from Mornington Island Dance and performers from other state schools in far north Queensland.

William was entrusted to pass on stories from the Quandamooka Elders of Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island).

The students performed Marygympa which means sea eagle. The sea eagle is important to the Aboriginal people of Minjerribah because, when they went fishing, they could tell how far out the fish were by watching the sea eagle.

The stage backdrops for Our Spirit featured the artwork of Indigenous artist Ian Jensen, a Yidinji-man from Gordonvale. He is a descendant of the Lower Coastal Yidinji people, and completed his Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual arts studies at the Tropical North Queensland Institute of TAFE in 2010.

The seventh annual Creative Generation show gave these talented students a chance to work with highly respected artists in the lead-up to the show, learning new skills and refining their techniques.

Creative Generation — State Schools Onstage 2011 will be broadcast on Network Ten at 2 pm on Saturday 19 November 2011.

Creative Generation is run by the Queensland Department of Education and Training. This year it featured a 650-voice choir, a 65-piece symphony orchestra, 420 dancers and feature vocalists and dancers from the ages of 5 to 18.