SOUTHERN NGALIA WOMEN'S DANCE CAMPS

In 2009 Gretel co-founded an intergenerational dance camp project with Warlpiri senior women from Yuendumu (Northern Territory) and youth worker Natalie O'Connor in response to the elder women's concern that cultural knowledge was not being transferred to younger generations of Warlpiri women. In 2010 Gretel garnered some research funding with a small team from Victoria University to interview some of the Warlpiri women on issues of dance pedagogy in the cultural transference process and consult with them on future directions for the camps. The camps continue to be a much-anticipated twice-yearly event, facilitated by the senior women with InCite  Arts, Warlpiri Youth Development Aboriginal Corporation and local partners.
 http://incitearts.org.au/sn/

Gretel wrote about her experiences of dancing with the Warlpiri women on their country, and about her own 'locating' dance in relation to place in 'Dancing Country Two Ways' in Writings on Dance, 2012. 
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I acknowledge the Wurundjeri Woi wurrung and neighbouring Bunurong and Boon wurrung peoples of the eastern Kulin Nation as the Traditional Custodians of the unceded lands on which I live, work and dance. I pay deep respect to their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. I extend that respect to Traditional Owners of the many Countries on which I undertake my work and to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. I pay deep respect to First Nations elders past and present, who have listened to Country and danced, sung and told stories in and about their places for millennia.