Andrea James – June 30 2019

‘Coranderrk’ gazetted at the Aboriginal people’s suggestion – 30 June 1863

Andrea is a Yorta Yorta writer, director and dramaturge in Aboriginal Theatre. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Drama from LaTrobe University and Bachelor of Dramatic Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts. Andrea has written, co-written and directed several plays including Yanagai! Yanagai!, for which she is best known, a celebration, set on the banks of the Murray River, of the stories and song of her father’s Yorta Yorta people and their struggle for land rights justice. Andrea has been Artistic Director of Melbourne Workers Theatre, was dramaturge to Lou Bennett’s one-woman cabaret Show us ya Tiddas!, and is currently the Aboriginal Arts Development Officer at Blacktown City Council. She developed a cross-art new work entitled To Soothe the Dying Pillow while in residence at Performance Space in Carriageworks in Redfern, Sydney. Most recently Andrea has directed Bully Beef Stew with three Aboriginal men at PACT Theatre and written the short play Winyanboga Yurringa inspired by Hyllus Maris and Sonia Borg’s iconic ‘Women of the Sun’. Her essay ‘Radiant Women on Radiant Country – A response to Radiance by Louis Nowra’ is part of the Currency Press Cue the Chorus: Contemporary responses to classic Australian plays series.

Coranderrk: We Will Show the Country co-written with Giordano Nanni
Aboriginal Studies Press, 2013; ISBN 9781922059390
Full length; 2 female, 2 male (multiple roles played by doubling)
The battle for Coranderrk was one of the first sustained campaigns for justice, land rights and self-determination. In 1881, proud of their culture, their community and their award-winning farm, the Kulin people (on the Coranderrk Aboriginal Station) lobbied the Board for the Protection of Aborigines in a fight for justice, dignity and self-determination against greedy local landowners who wanted them removed. This verbatim-theatre rescues Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal witnesses from dusty archives. It pays tribute to the resilience and adaptability of a people who rose to the challenge despite all odds, and celebrates the spirit of friendship and genuine collaboration between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people in pursuit of justice.

The Forever Zone
Australian Script Centre, 2009
20 minutes; 2 female, 3 male
Young adult – adult
Reflecting Indigenous peoples’ prior and ongoing ownership of the land Melbourne stands on we have the Melbourne suburb ‘Birrarung’, meaning river of mists (the Yarra). Set on the Melbourne tramway system (a modern river of transportation) and in the secret chambers of Flinders Street Station (by the side of the Yarra), this comic and poignant magical-realist piece shows an ancient Aboriginal warrior in a possum skin cloak confronted by a motley crew of ticket inspectors on a tram. Back at their headquarters he whisks them away on a magical journey through the dusty old ballroom above the terminus and into the forever zone.