The trio is keeping this 'sleeping' language alive with Gikilangangu Wergaia.
Gikilangangu Wergaia is a suite of songs written and performed by Jaadwa composer James Howard, Wergaia and Wemba Wemba songwriter Alice Skye, and Koori drummer Michael Julian.
Presented by Monash University Performing Arts Centres (MPAC), the trio will reassemble for a special performance at The Count’s; MPAC’s renowned jazz club, known for its cosy interior, inviting dining area, and Italian-inspired bar and eatery, on Wednesday 18 June as part of the Blakout program.
The title translates to “We always sing Wergaia” in the Wergaia language. The trio premiered the work at Melbourne Fringe last October
The show consists of all new material written in Wergaia language, a language spoken by various First Nations communities from the Wimmera region of western Victoria. So, while Howard is a Jaadwa man, Skye a Wergaia/Wemba Wemba woman, and their language teacher and mentor, Kylie Kennedy, a Wotjobaluk woman, their peoples all speak Wergaia.
Blakout: Gikilangangu Wergaia
- When: Wednesday 18 June, 7.30pm
- Where: The Count’s, MPAC (Monash University Performing Arts Centres), Clayton
- Tickets: here
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Howard – who completed a PhD in reconnecting to Indigenous cultural heritage through music – has always wanted to incorporate language into his music. He began attending Kennedy’s online Wergaia classes in late 2023 and, after learning enough vocabulary and grammar to construct a sentence, he started thinking of ways to bring the language into the work he was making.
“It’s not something that I wanted to take on by myself,” Howard says. “I knew I wanted to do it with others.”
Howard was a fan of Skye’s music, and the two had met briefly at a cultural festival pre-COVID. When he started working on Gikilangangu Wergaia, Howard saw it as a perfect opportunity to collaborate. “There was no one better suited to sing the language in my mind,” he says.
Skye released her second album, I Feel Better But I Don’t Feel Good, in 2021, but experienced music industry burnout in the aftermath. “My relationship with music was so distorted by the industry and kind of unconsciously working pretty exhaustively in a commercial setting,” she says.
When Howard approached her about Gikilangangu Wergaia, Skye was interested immediately. “I feel like I really needed this project at that time,” she says. “My spirit needed this.”
Howard and Julian go back years. They met when they were both studying at the VCA and bonded over their Koori heritage. “There’s always that aspect of reclaiming identity for First Nations people in one way or another,” Julian says. “So, it was just so beautiful learning about our individual journeys, the parallels in that, and realising those points of connection for us.”
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For Skye, the act of ‘reclaiming identity’, as Julian puts it, felt especially pertinent. Her family has deep connections to the preservation and continuation of Wergaia language.
“My great nanny was interviewed and recorded by a woman from Monash University in the 1960s,” she says. “She was recorded speaking Wergaia and telling stories and she contributed a lot to the Wergaia language dictionary in the 1960s, along with other Elders from our community.”
Despite these efforts to keep the language alive, Wergaia, like so many Indigenous languages, has had its survival threatened as a consequence of Great Britain’s invasion and settlement of Australia.
“People describe our languages as sleeping or resting,” Skye says, “and I guess that’s a hard thing for me to wrap my head around because I think it’s very much awake and alive in the Country itself.”
Skye’s father and his siblings were taught Wergaia by their parents and grandparents, but Skye didn’t grow up speaking the language. After connecting with Howard, she also started attending Kennedy’s classes.
“I was so grateful to have been linked into that because I grew up with this dictionary that my great-granny contributed to, but I didn’t really know how to pronounce things or use grammar,” she says.
Singing in Wergaia and collaborating with Howard and Julian on Gikilangangu Wergaia has been one of the most meaningful musical endeavours of her career, Skye says.
“I’m so grateful to be a part of this project. Getting to collaborate with other Koori mob, I think because of all the big things happening right now, we need to be spending time with each other and talking to our neighbours, really stripping it back to the basics.”
Howard agrees. “The project is for community,” he says. “The ultimate goal is to create something that isn’t just, like, the three of us. It’s creating a way of writing songs again that can be shared.”
To get tickets to see Blakout: Gikilangangu Wergaia, head here.
