Tjaabi–Flood Country
Next Occurrence: Saturday, 26th July 2025
7:00pm to 8:30pm
Description
Tjaabi is a Contemporary Intercultural Music and Theatre Performance.
Ngarluma song-man Patrick Churnside brings his profoundly moving personal journey to life, with searing truth-telling and powerful tjaabi singing. Interweaving this Pilbara song tradition with narrative theatre, Tjaabi: Flood Country addresses the ravenous appetites of colonisation still sweeping across his homelands.
Created by Scott Rankin and Patrick Churnside, Tjaabi features layered musical arrangements by Aaron Hopper, and hand rendered images from Benjamin Decroz. Produced by Big hART, Tjaabi sits in a 25-year theatre lineage which includes Namatjira, Ngapartji Ngapartji, Hipbone Sticking Out and Box the Pony.
Patrick Churnside’s Tjaabi: Flood Country: Weaving Stories of the Pilbara’s Soul… The performance is more than just a musical theatre production; it’s a testament to the power of storytelling, resilience, and cultural exchange.
– SBS / NIVT, 2024.
Churnside’s songs and stories are alternately comical and reverential. He sings about the warmth of the first rising sun in Martuthunira Country near the Fortescue River, the scent of rain, the rustle of leaves.
– Victoria Laurie, The Australian, 2016.
