{"id":9755,"date":"2023-11-22T16:39:31","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T06:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/?p=9755"},"modified":"2023-11-23T09:09:55","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T23:09:55","slug":"responding-to-archival-collections-with-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.paradisec.org.au\/blog\/2023\/11\/responding-to-archival-collections-with-song\/","title":{"rendered":"Responding to Archival Collections with Song"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The PNG Peroveta Singers of Canberra<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jodie Kell and Steven Gagau<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PARADISEC in collaboration with PNG Peroveta Singers of Canberra and Holy Cross Anglican Church & St Margaret\u2019s Uniting Church held a launch event of Toksave Podcast episodes 13 & 14. The launch was well attended by about 50 people including families, friends, colleagues & Papua New Guinea & Pacific Island community members in Canberra and Queanbeyan on Sunday 12 November at the Holy Cross Church, Hackett ACT. The attendees had very positive experience and enjoyed the event with presentations and performances as part of our PARADISEC community outreach and cultural engagements and supporting our archival-community collaborations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We were welcomed to the Holy Cross Church in Hackett ACT for sharing Peroveta and Sene recordings by the Reverend Doctor Tim Watson<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The PNG Peroveta Singers of Canberra was formed in 1999 as a collective diaspora community initiative led by Deveni Temu who continues to be the coordinator of the group. The members are predominately from Central Province, Papua New Guinea as residents and students living in the regions of Canberra, ACT and Queanbeyan, NSW. The group\u2019s motivation is to maintain culture, music and language whilst abroad to feel, share, perform Peroveta songs and Sene dance items connecting the members to people, places where they come from in their homeland.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Peroveta is a type of singing also known as \u2018prophet songs\u2019. Due to the influence of Christianity coming from the London Missionary Society and their South Sea Islander missionaries, this form of singing was adopted in the Southern Region provinces of Papua New Guinea and has shaped the Papuan Christian community identity and music through its unique combination of Biblical scriptures, missionary histories and local customs expressed through traditional choral music sung with soaring and interweaving parts. Sene is a Hiri Motu word which means cultural traditional items.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The PNG Peroveta Singers of Canberra, February 2023 L-R: Deveni Temi, Wari Powell, Laka Gwillam, Theresa Hogg, Hane Dietz, Erue Stevens, Marion Gilmour and Tommy Dietz<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Sene Cultural Dance of Gaire Kitoro performed by (L-R) Tommy Dietz, Theresa Hogg, Deveni Temu, Wari Powell<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The Sene traditional music includes songs, chants and laments of the Central Province which are performed in ceremonies, festivals and traditional practices. The group sings the languages of Hiri Motu, Hula, Keapara, Rigo, Aroma, Marshall Lagoon and Magi-Mailu of the Central Province districts as well as Rarotongan, also known as Cook Islands M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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They are responding to the PARADISEC archival collections MG1 and IC1 through creating new recordings, sharing cultural knowledge about the songs leading to the creation of a new collection PC2. The MG1 collection was recorded in the late 1950\u2019s and 1960\u2019s by Murray Groves, an anthropologist whose 1956 PhD awarded by the University of Oxford was a comparative study of three Motuan villages, Boera, Porebada and Manumanu, near Port Moresby. His research was eventually published as a book in 2011 as \u2018The Motu of Papua: tradition in a time of change\u2019. The IC1 collection consists of recordings made by Ian Campbell in Tubuseria Village, Central Province in 1969. Ian was participating in the National Union of Australian University Students \u201cVillage\u201d scheme operated by the colonial Australian Administration in the late 1960\u2019s where Australian university students stayed in Papua New Guinean villages. Ian\u2019s recordings include church music, and traditional music known as \u2018sing-sing\u2019.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Images taken by Ian Campbell in Tubuseria Village in 1969. Available in the IC1 collection<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Steven Gagau filming Sene performer Salote Temu <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The collaboration with the PNG Peroveta Singers of Canberra is a practical example of the PARADISEC “archival loop” model used in our community outreach which fosters cultural engagement between speaker communities and the archive. We developed this model when co-writing with Amanda Harris, Nick Thieberger and Nick Ward about historical Papua New Guinean recordings in the PARADISEC collection[1]<\/a>. Coming from an \u2018insider-outsider\u2019 perspective as a Tolai man working in the archive, Steven says this approach ensures there is cultural safety, accountability and value adding of archival materials from the past to the present. The Archival Loop focuses on:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n