Thank you to everyone and especially Evan from Blue Mountains Walkabout for the amazing experience last week! We had the privilege of a guided walk through the beautiful Blue Mountains ...
Thank you to everyone and especially Evan from Blue Mountains Walkabout for the amazing experience last week!
We had the privilege of a guided walk through the beautiful Blue Mountains and an insight into the deep Indigenous connection to the land.
It was truly an educational, inspiring, empowering, and adventurous experience!
Information about Evan and Blue Mountains Walkabout can be found here:
Thank you to Daren and all you Deadly Dreamers for a Mad day of art and Congratulations to all our intrepid travellers, particularly Yarran! Full Respect to you all! Your ...
Thank you to Daren and all you Deadly Dreamers for a Mad day of art and Congratulations to all our intrepid travellers, particularly Yarran!
Full Respect to you all!
Your pictures look amazing in the Deadly dreaming space here at UTS Kuring-gai.
So impressed is the university by your behavior and your work that they have given you the university space to make it fully your own!!!
We will get back there very shortly to finish the painting and make some more!
In the meantime you can see your awesome art up on the web and Facebook in the day or two. Here though is a sneak peek!
Coming up this Sunday 18th March 10:30-3pm, at Kuring-gai Campus Deadly Art with Daren Dunn Check out his mad art and footy boots… www.alenarra-art.com.au/daren-dunn To Let us know that you ...
The Dreamers of 2011 graduated at Tranby Aboriginal College on 11 December 2011. Everyone who began the program graduated – an amazing achievement! We are super proud of them! Here ...
The Dreamers of 2011 graduated at Tranby Aboriginal College on 11 December 2011.
Everyone who began the program graduated – an amazing achievement !
We are super proud of them! Here they are on graduation day with the HBaYD Team.
Dreamers Graduating – December 2011
You can immerse yourself in the joy of graduation here:
What did they get up to during their year with us?
Here’s a roll call of each Dreamer’s journey with us over 2011.
Georgia Addison
Georgia made a show reel of acting scenes with a professional acting coach. The idea is to produce a reel of scenes showing what Georgia can do in different moods, portraying different characters and showing her acting range.
Check out what she produced, with the coaching of the wonderful Kate Box, a professional actor, here:
Luwana (Micky) Cunningham
Micky decided on a deadly project late in the year. She joined Tonika and Chloe’s project to research, plan and lead a trip back to country.
A complicated thing to do! But with the right support from family and the HBaYD Team, Micky headed to Tumut in south-western New South Wales, and to the mission outside Tumut called Brungle.
She met up with aunts and cousins and learned more about where she comes from. She interviewed her family members, brought news of her nan and just hung out learning more about what makes Brungle tick.
She wrote about it – a lot! You can read the blog that she produced with the help of Rosie Pearson and Jada Alberts here:
Chantelle produced drawings, and more drawings and then more still. She wasn’t happy with much of her work – she sets high standards! But she was drawn to make an animation with the talented Vinh Nguyen to explore some of the complexity of her imagination.
She describes her project as “a small animation about how life can be brutal and horrifying. How sometimes you try to juggle so much that you can’t handle it anymore.”
Watch it here:
Blake Clark
Blake began designing a computer game with three challenging levels. It played with the idea of being an Aboriginal superhero in three time periods – before the arrival of European colonisers; the early times of colonisation; and today, in the schoolyard.
Blake found it pretty challenging, even though he was working with Stephen Beeson, a games developer who worked on the ground-breaking game, LA Noire .
So Blake changed direction and made a TV talk-back/comedy show called The Wombat Show . Blake hosted and wrote most of the gags. He worked with Tyrone Saunders and Chris Petrella-Smith to make The Wombat Show . It explores questions on young people’s minds and doesn’t shy away from asking the hard questions!
Enter the crazy world of The Wombat Show here:
Jeremy Clark
Jeremy is a natural born entertainer, comic and actor. Like Georgia, he wanted to make a show reel of his acting ability to win acting work in the future.
He worked with a professional actor, the wonderful Kate Box, to produce this show reel:
Kimberley Brown
Kim has a wonderful photographic ability. She explored this talent with us, in collaboration with the very talented and award-winning photographer, Sarah Rhodes .
Kim explored The Block in Redfern as it was demolished before our eyes over the year, to make way for a redevelopment. She also did some portraiture work of other Dreamers. Kim photographed Taminya, Chloe and Tonika modelling make-up designs that Taminya developed with Amy Morgan .
You can see a gallery of Kim’s graduation exhibition here:
Taylor Chalmers
Taylor wants to perform, amongst other things. Like Jeremy and Georgia, she worked with professional actor, Kate Box, to produce a show reel so that she can showcase her acting abilities to casting agents.
You can watch it here:
Taylor didn’t stop there though. She also worked with the very wonderful Nadeena Dixon to write the lyrics and music to a haunting song about her personal journey in the year, Falling Like A Leaf. Listen to her track now:
Chloe, Tonika and Micky had a common mission – to explore their families’ histories, to return to country and to connect more strongly with their Aboriginal cultures.
It is a complicated thing to do well – but with family support and the support of the HBaYD Team, Chloe researched, planned and led a roadtrip back to Coonabarabran and Quirindi where her mum comes from.
Her maternal pop came along too. Jada Alberts, HBaYD Team, was there too.
Chloe wrote about what she learned and experienced on her trip to Coonabarabran and Quirindi. You can check out her blog here:
Tonika, like Chloe and Micky, decided to research, plan and lead a trip back to Kempsey and Taree where she is from. She also has mob in Narrandera, NSW.
Tonika enjoyed the company of Chloe and Micky on her trip, supervised by Jada Alberts of the HBaYD Team.
Kempsey was in flood when the girls were in town but it didn’t stop Tonika from meeting with family, including her nan, and elders with stories to share.
You can read Tonika’s reflections on her trip, and watch interviews that she recorded with family members and elders on her blog:
Amy dances everyday. We challenged her to choreograph and perform a dance piece that told a story that she wanted to tell, and that expressed some of her own feelings.
This is how Amy began – it is a dance piece that represents the pull between who we are, who we want to become and how we might get there.
Eric Avery , a dancer and dance film maker, then worked with Amy to develop her piece further and to understand better the potential of film medium. Look at the distance Amy travelled to make her final work:
Taminya Brown
Taminya battled to find a project that she could stick with – she began with the idea of being a journalist or presenter.
Like Taylor, she also worked with Nadeena Dixon to write an original song. She has a killer voice but didn’t make it to the recording studio – that’s for 2012 huh Taminya? We hope so!
Instead, Taminya landed on her feet by conceiving make-up designs that explore concepts of beauty over time and between cultures.
Taminya explains her project here:
Here is a showcase of Taminya’s designs modelled by Dreamers and Taminya herself.
Respect to Amy Morgan, a professional make-up designer and artist who worked with Taminya and inspired her enormously!
We are looking for participants for our program in 2012. Click Here!
We are looking for participants for our program in 2012. Applicants must identify and be accepted as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, live or study in Sydney, and be in Years 9 or 10 in 2012.
(We are also looking for adult mentors in Sydney’s Indigenous communities. An online application for mentors to support participants will be issued very soon – just as soon as we know where potential participants reside.)
The How Big Are Your Dreams? program is designed to promote long-term connections to education ; to strengthen the participants’ self-confidence and cultural knowledge ; and to impart new skills and capacities which will allow the participants to do whatsoever they dream of doing.
We think of it as a place that tends a fire within participants that no one can put out.
We describe the program to participants as “as a dressing room where you can try on all kinds of ambitions and possibilities; an unfamiliar classroom where you learn by doing and experimenting; a stage from which you can tell stories that you care about; a tall ladder that offers fresh perspectives and new opportunities, and a warm home away from home where you will find a supportive network of young people like you, and adults who are committed to you.”
Our program has strong Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff and we are committed to providing highly personalised support to each of our participants throughout the year and beyond.
We warmly invite applications from Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander high school students in Sydney who will head into Year 9 or Year 10 next year to be part of our program in 2012.
It is a year-long program with a monthly commitment and we aim to create a strong and lasting community of support around the students in partnership with their families and schools. We plug technology gaps and we have a small education expense fund to help to defray unaffordable costs that stand in the way of education.
CONFIRMATION OF ABORIGINALITY : We will ask applicants to confirm that they identify and are accepted as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people if they are short-listed for the program.
SELECTION : We will conduct face-to-face interviews with applicants and their families/guardians in December 2011. Applicants will be advised of their acceptance to the program before the end of the year.
QUESTIONS : Please do not hesitate to call us on (02) 9514 5374 or to email Jane or Jada with any questions.
