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The cover of an issue of the Alevi magazine Alevilerin
Sesi features two ochre covered Yolngu dancers in front of Uluru. Cockatoos fly over
the Rock and tripping gracefully across Uluru are the figures of two Alevi dancers. (The
Alevis believe that one of the Aboriginal dance movements - arms outstretched and legs
rhythmically stamping - parallels one of their dance steps.) That exploration of
Aboriginality by a small, largely unknown community is perhaps what Gordon Bennett might
refer to as the 'art of the beautiful life'. This grace is not an inessential or
negligible element in a meeting of communities. A character in Cheik Hamidou Kane's
Ambiguous Adventure suggests that civilisation is an architecture of responses in which
more strident voices threaten to drown out others. I would paraphrase this as an
orchestration of voices. Excerpt from Philip Morrissey's catalogue essay |