A time to Rekonzile

BY WENDY COLLIS
Rekonzile combines ballet, dialogue, rap, rock, hip-hop dancing and singing to tell the personal stories of its three main performers and to promote reconciliation.
‘The story is based on us’ and what we have been through,’ says Rhimi Johnson Page, 18, whose father committed suicide in 2002.
Performing in Rekonzile will be an opportunity for him to express his story. ‘Getting my point of view across about just everything, just everything I have kept in for so long.’
Kerry Johnston decided to write the play after he was approached by the Reconciliation Unity Network (RUN) to do a community project about reconciliation. Kerry took a more personal perception to the theme and decided to ‘think about individual reconciliation, reconciling with family and community.’
After going through the long structural interactive process with three main performers she was already familiar with, Johnston says she realised that their own stories were the right ones to share.
‘That was the challenge, to bring those stories out in a very sincere way, both personally and culturally. And it just so happens that they were all very diverse stories.’
And according to Johnston, the wide range of narrative will ensure that ‘audiences will go in there and find something that they can particularly relate to.
‘There’s ballet, there’s mainstream contemporary, there’s indigeonous contemporary, there’s traditional, then there are the stories of the three main characters,’ she says.
Merinda Beale, 16, has a Yugoslavian mother and an Aboriginal father. Her personal story explores the theme of identity, and while her character teaches her overprotective father about independence, she understands the importance of family.
Another participant, Ryka Satrick, 18, is a Torres Strait Islander who has spent two years living in the USA. He says he felt a connection with the African-Americans that he met, but was relieved to come back to a familiar culture in Australia.
‘I wasn’t raised where my culture was,’ says Satrick. ‘I had to find it, it was already there, if you know what I am saying. My mother always taught me about my culture since I was young.’
Kerry Johnston says the biggest challenge for Aboriginal people following Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generation, is the acceptance of the community’s history.
‘Different people, different individuals, families and communities will deal with that in their own ways, Johnston says, adding, ‘you never can expect everybody to be at the same point with it. Its such a sensitive thing, especially when you have had so many different people experiencing it on so many different levels.’
It is now a time, she says, for preparing the Aboriginal community and Aboriginal youth for the road to reconciliation.
‘We have to have some kind of resolution to this, otherwise we’re always going to be stuck in the past, and our kids deserve more.
‘So that’s the real challenge, of healing, letting go, and moving forward in whatever capacity you choose.’
‘ The first performance of Rekonzile is on at the Seymour Centre on September 17