The Yajilarra (Let Us Dream) Festival was held for the first time inside Danggu Gorge, near Fitzroy Crossing, by the region’s Bunuba traditional owners.
Planning for the performances of music, dance, puppetry techniques and set design went across towns, cities and state borders, into classrooms and lounge rooms – and even driveways.
The belief that it could be done was the thread that pulled it all together.
Distance was a challenge but not an impossible barrier to overcome for the crew and cast putting together a cultural festival in the Kimberley.
Perth’s Concert & Corporate Productions was originally approached to provide a lighting system to illuminate the cliff walls of a portion of the Danggu Geikie Gorge National Park in the Kimberly region of WA.
“This event was in support of the Bunuba Dawangarri Aboriginal Corporation, the Bunuba Conservation Institute, and the reuniting of the Traditional owners of this country,” explained Jerry Reinhardt, CCP’s project manager for the event. “As talks with Joe Ross (a leader of the Bunuba people and organizer of this historic event) progressed, the scope of CCP’s involvement significantly grew in magnitude. The event evolved into a two-day production with CCP providing lighting of both the stage production and surrounding terrain.”
CCP also provided the audio system for the production as well as a video system used to capture the event and live-streamed through a Telstra satellite newsgathering van. They also organized a 10m x 15 m stage which was provided by Ed Matthews of EventEx in Perth.
Brent Campbel from Airlec in Perth provided generators for production as well as all site power for the VIP tent city, toilets plus power for over 2 kilometres of festoon lights that he strung from the campsites to the stage site.
“We were able to run our lighting, video, audio and cliff lighting on the riverside of the gorge on a single 130kVA silent generator with a redundant backup genset for Justin (just in case!),” added Jerry. “Getting these four-ton gensets to the stage site was indeed a major challenge in itself. The festoon lighting and west wall tree lighting was powered by a series of 2.2kVA portable generators.”
The crew Josh Walther (Senior Lighting Tech), Josh Tilson (Video Director), Luke Dunford (Audio Engineer) and Jerry (LD) flew from Perth to Broome and then drove a rental 4-wheel drive four hours to Fitzroy Crossing. They were accommodated in a workers camp and each had their own donga.
The primary objective of the lighting design was to reveal and enhance the natural beauty of the gorge at night as well as provide appropriate stage lighting for the two native stories performed the first night by two indigenous school groups from Fitzroy Crossing and Broome.
“We also had to provide concert stage lighting on the second night for several groups of Indigenous musicians and John Butler who headlined in the evening,” said Jerry. “It was a bit presumptuous to think I could enhance on what Mother Nature provided with her daily awesome views of the Gorge however, I believe we painted one of the most stunning canvases on the planet pretty well.”
The two onstage arches provided the foundation for a large 6m high Falcon and wings to be attached. The Falcon featured prominently in the Winthali story.
Amongst all the challenges that are encountered on any production, CCP’s biggest challenge was the tyranny of location. The only access to the proposed stage site was either by a 2km track built for walkers or via barge boats on the Fitzroy River. Both methods posed significant challenges. In the end, the walking track was modestly widened and about 3 kilometres of Geocell was installed. “Essentially, thanks to Jonathan Sanford from Intense Logistics, we built a road,” remarked Jerry. “Even with this installation vehicles were often bogged in the deep river sand and we spent a fair few hours de-bogging. The closest we could get our 40-foot semi-trailer to the site was 3 kilometres away on solid ground. We were required to shuttle our gear in a small trailer towed by a 4-wheel drive vehicle. Once we reached the track we often needed a Manitou to tow the 4-wheel drive that was towing the trailer. Once on-site with our gear it was a mammoth effort to accomplish anything due to trudging seemingly endlessly through deep river sand. I was told by the Bunuba people that the site of our stage is under 4 – 5 metres of water during the wet season.”
To light the cliff walls on the riverside behind the stage a combination of Martin MAC Viper Profiles and High End Shapeshifters were used. There were six 1.2m x 2.4m x 600mm risers spread out over a 100m distance. Each riser had two MAC Vipers and one Shapeshifter on them and the low angle plus large spread provided the optimum coverage.
Two T-shaped towers were erected for front wash, each had six Ayrton Nandobeams for front wash and two Acme LED IP WW Blinders used as house lights and work light. Onstage they erected two 4m high x 6m wide arches. Each arch had a 4m x 6m white scrim attached and shadow play images were rear-projected on them. Each arch upright had 3 x LED Stage Bars attached vertically. Eight Martin MAC101s were hung from the arches with eight more floor-mounted under each arch. Eight LED Stage Bars were mounted at the front of the stage as footlights for fill and two TourPro Titan 400i UV units were used on the floor. Four MAC Profiles and 10 x Sunstrips were used as a floor package on the second night. The TourPro Storm 1000 RGBW were used to light the foliage on the west wall which was approximately 300m behind FOH mix position.
“The programming was a bit limited due to the time it took to install the gear and get power,” added Jerry. “We arrived in Fitzroy Crossing on a Friday and it took us the entire 12 hour day Saturday just to get the contents of our semi-trailer to the site. It took another entire day to install our gear. We spent the next two nights programming lights for the Bunuba stories of Rayi and Winthali in preparation for Tech and Dress rehearsals. Luke Dunford mixed 8 x wireless headset mics along with multiple voiceover and music cues. Josh Tilson mixed a five-camera shoot along with multiple projection cues.”
CCP provided a five-camera shoot, utilizing 3 x PTZ remote-controlled cameras along with two fixed HD Cameras. The captured video mix was sent via 300m of fibre optic cable to a Telstra Satellite Broadcast Van and was live-streamed to a dedicated site as well as to regional stations. Two Panasonic 7k projectors were used for rear projection of predesigned shadow plays and sponsor logos.
“I have been working on productions since the age of sixteen and have now reached the half-century mark of my show-biz career (oops, just gave away my age),” commented Jerry. “Be that as it may, I must confess that this was one of the most unique, challenging, and gratifying projects I have ever worked on. The basis for this project was the reuniting of the Bunuba people, the traditional owners of this magnificent country and the preservation of the Fitzroy River in all its wonder. I am both honoured and grateful for the opportunity to have CCP and myself play a major role in this project.”
12 x Martin MAC Viper Profile
6 x High End Shapeshifter
12 x Ayrton Nandobeam S6
18 x LED Stage Bar 1512
9 x TourPro Storm 1000 RGBW
2 x TourPro Titan 400i UV
4 x ETC S4 26 degree
2 x ETC S4 90 degree
4 x Martin MAC 700 Profiles
4 x Acme LED IP WW Blinders
10 x Sunstrips
