The Saybaylgaw Yangu Wakay team joined Sedrick Waia’s Mens Dance Troupe for a Naidoc celebration performance at the Djarragun College 6 Sept 2022. The performance brought together Saibai elders and brothers, Sedrick and Jeffrey Waia who live in Saibai and Cairns respectively. Jensen Warusam and Vincent Babia lent their voices to the singers creating a powerful sound which brought the audience to their feet!
I convened a workshop in Cairns 2-19th September 2022 with of the Saybaylgaw Yangu Wakay team to work through some ideas for the project with Melbourne based graphic designer Dylan Buckee. Team lead Jeffrey Waia worked closely with our artist Vincent Babia on the logo design and ideas for children’s stories. Jeffrey also worked with Jensen Warusam on creating bilingual children’s stories which we can use in future work. Saybaylgaw Yangu Wakay recognises that Saibai language and culture is preserved, maintained and revitalised through stories, songs and dance which drives the creative process.
In August I was invited to speak at MTNS MADE salon, a forum for internationally acclaimed Blue Mountains based film-makers.
Blue Mountains Screen Hub is co-hosting the salon and has organised a stella line-up of speakers and screenings for the night. Speakers include Dr. Andrew Belletty, Louise C. Brandt, Genevieve Clay, Guy Edmonds, Me-Lee Hay, Kris Rowe.
Doors open at 6pm at the Baroque Room of The Carrington for a 6.30pm start. Drinks will be available for purchase at the bar.
Spaces are limited, so be sure to book in quick!
The MTNS MADE salon program celebrates the work of the local creative professionals each season and provides the opportunity of networking, sharing work and creating opportunities for collaboration.
Yolŋu surf rockers are carrying on the legacy of Yothu Yindi with heartfelt, hooky songs about home, community and country.
I was asked by Yothu Yindi bandmate and King Stingray manager Stu Kellaway to remix for the bands’ release on 5th August 2022. I received the stems from three different studios and set about remixing the tracks in my 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos equiped Hazelbrook studio. I then mastered the Atmos mixes for Apple Spatial Audio delivery, which enable the listener to switch between standard and spatial sound on IOS devices. I was blown away when Stu called the day after the album released with news that Apple Music Australia claiming that the Album was the best sounding Spatial release they have heard!
I was commissioned to record traditional songs on Saibai Island in June 2022 for inclusion in a forthcoming film directed by John Harvey. I used an ambisonics mic augmented by a range of spot mics to capture the music, singing and atmosphere of the performance. The results are breathtaking and will heard when the film is released later in 2022.
Workshops in Bamaga and Seisia May 2022 revitalising, documenting and maintaining Kalaw Kawaw Ya language and culture in Bamaga and Seisia.
I am in the 4th year of producing Saybaylgaw Yangu Wakay, a community owned, community based and community driven project aimed at revitalising, documenting and maintaining Saibai language and culture with the Bamaga and Seisia communities. The team has develop workshops that are First Nations led, where artists, storytellers and creative practitioners share skills and industry expertise create the strongest outcomes.
This project is about Saibai artists and storytellers determining the way stories and knowledge is shared and disseminated.There is an urgent need to revitalize, document and maintain the KKY language and culture through activities led by fluent speakers teaching children cultural knowledge in their mother tongue.
Saibai is an island of 400 people which is threatened each month by rising tides, putting them on the frontline of Australia’s climate crisis in the 1950’s as Islanders were forced to migrate to the mainland. Saibai language and culture was threaten as younger generations grew up speaking dominant languages such as English and Creole.
Saibai language and culture are inseparable, and are an integral part of culture and identity. Language embodies kinship, which connects Saibai people spiritually to the land, sea and sky environment. When Saibai language is used in speaking, singing and dancing it becomes a force which heals, empowers and strengthens health and wellbeing.
Teaching Saibai language and culture to children makes sense from a social, political, and economic perspective.
The work commissioned as part pf the Living Laneways initiative has been installed at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre, Katoomba, and is part of the newly launched Katoomba Urban Art Trail.
Just finished the 5.1 mix for Bronwyn Oliver: The Shadows Within, a beautiful story about an amazing artist. It was a pleasure working with director Catherine Hunter’s and the emotionally evocative score by Amanda Brown.
I have just completed the remixed masters of four melbient albums for Bandcamp. The ambient and experimental albums feature some beautiful work from melbient aka Missi Mel Pesa.
The albums explore a diverse range of themes through ambient textures which are both sparse and raw as heard in off the light, through to in a room’s dense sound collages and the haunting, ambience filled soundscapes of In bocca al lupo. The remixing and mastering was technically challenging as I revisited old work sessions and PCM masters, but the results are spectacular.
I have been commissioned to create a large acoustic artwork in Davies Lane Katoomba. The work titled Echo Lane aims to create an intimate amphitheatre in this busy laneway which opens onto Katoomba’s main shopping street.
Echo Lane is an experimental site activation across Davies Lane based upon the Indian Trumpet Horn, a ubiquitous feature of my homeland, designed to project sound across long distances with minimal effort. The concept behind the work builds upon ancient ideas of deep listening. This new work will animate the relationship between sound, place, time, and history, by amplifying sounds from within and without the site, bringing them into the laneway acoustically.
The work is scheduled for installation by the first week of September 2021.
Andrew Belletty 