Corroboree

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For the frog of the same name see, Corroboree frog.

A ballet performance based on the Corroboree

In the northwest of Australia, corroboree is a generic word to define theatrical practices as different from ceremony. Whether it be public or private, ceremony is for invited guests. There are other generic words to describe traditional public performances: juju and kobbakobba for example. In the Pilbara, corroborees are yanda or jalarra. Across the Kimberley the word junba is often used to refer to a range of genres. Corroboree and ceremony are strongly connected but different. In the 1930s Adolphus Elkin wrote of a public pan-Aboriginal dancing "tradition of individual gifts, skill, and ownership" as distinct from the customary practices of appropriate elders guiding initiation and other ritual practices (Elkin 1938:299). Corroborees are open performances in which everyone may participate taking into consideration that the songs and dances are highly structured requiring a great deal of knowledge and skill to perform. Corroboree is a generic word to explain different genres of performance which in the northwest of Australia include balga, wangga, lirrga, junba, ilma and many more. Throughout Australia the word corroboree embraces songs, dances, rallies and meetings of various kinds. In the past a corroboree has been inclusive of sporting events and other forms of skill display. It is an appropriated English word that has been reappropriated to explain a practice that is different to ceremony and more widely inclusive than theatre or opera. The image of the ballet "Corroboree" is a reminder of how the arts can also be a colonial enterprise. The masked ballet dancers were women pretending to be men dancing intitiation ceremonies. This sort of confusion is further contributed to by people who insist on writing that corroborees are ceremonies when they clearly are not.