110 Australian Geographic
Part of a growing movement that’s seen cultural fes-
tivals f lourish across the far north, the Winds of Zenadth
attracted record crowds of more than 5000 in 2018. It has
helped champion political change, too.
The 1992 festival saw the raising of the Torres Strait
f lag for the first time, just weeks before the landmark
High Court victory of Torres Strait Islander Eddie
Mabo. Community leaders led the 2018 opening march
carrying the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the 2017
document calling for a First Nations Voice in the
Australian Constitution./LYLQJWUDGLWLRQV
“Our culture is ongoing and that’s the beauty about it,”
Vonda says. “It’s always evolving and we’re always adapt-
ing it.” Along with ancient dances, festival performers
tell stories of the arrival of the pearling luggers, or of
the World War II Japanese air raids on Horn Island.
These spurred almost all the Island men to enlist in
the Torres Strait Light Infantry Battalion, the first and
only all-Indigenous Australian battalion. Its contempo-
rary equivalent, the Sarpeye Company (Creole for Sharp
Eyes), d a nced at the 2018 fest iva l i n f u l l fat ig ues, m ach i ne
guns firing in unison.
“Choreographers were always middle-aged or
elderly,” Fred says. “But now we’ve got young people
coming through, which is great because for our culture
to survive, it’s essential there’s a succession plan that
supports our younger generations.”
One of those young choreographers is Phillemon
Mosby, from the central island of Poruma. Two years
ago he began composing new music and dances, work-
ing with his community’s Elders to revive their dialect
of Kulkalgaw Ya. It was the death of his father, lost at
sea in 2004 while working on a pilot boat guiding cargo
ships through the perilous Straits, that sparked his cre-
ative urge.
“It took a very long time for me to get over that,”
Phillemon recalls. “One night, when I was preparing a
meal, I looked out my window and saw the pilot boatcome in. That was my moment of letting go and I started
writing about my experience. I wanted to express culture
and language through the times we are living in today.”
The Poruma community dance team performed
Phillemon’s Pilot Boat Dance at the 2016 festival. His
most recent musical composition, Red Kungaru, retells a
Qantas f light he took early on a winter morning from
Adelaide airport. “I was totally fascinated to see outside
the window of my flight so many Qantas 747s neatly
parked,” he says, explaining that the song helps ease jan-
gled nerves of people leaving their Island home by plane
for the first time. “We’re oral history people: we yarn
about stuff, and song and dance is a powerful way for
people to tell their stories and pass the message on.
“Our cu lt ure is a n evolv ing one. W h i le there a re the
ancestral dances, which are important to us, we need to
connect as Torres Strait Islanders with where we are
today, as well. If we’re going to be future writers of our
songlines, we need to do it now while our Elders are
still alive.”
Another young Islander reinterpreting his culture is
dancer and catwalk model Hans Ahwang, from the island
of Moa (called Mua by locals). He graduated from
NAISDA Dance College in 2015. “The companies I
work w ith col laborate in m a k ing a f usion of d a nce st yles,
so i n that sense it’s contempora r y,” Ha ns says. “We m ig ht
use an Aboriginal movement here then a Torres Strait
Islander movement there, so it’s all mixed into one.”
Hans, whose arms and chest are tattooed with totemic
symbols, has performed in the USA twice and even uses
traditional moves on catwalks. His skills and discipline
come not only from his professional training but from
his upbringing: “The Elders used to growl at us in lan-
guage to do the dance properly – no laughing, no play-
ing around. It was very strict,” Hans recalls. “When I
go back home to Mua, I growl at our community dance
team because it’s the way things should be done.”
Hans also works with a dance troupe that provides
learning kits for schools, and after the teachers and stu-
dents have had time to digest the material, the troupeLarge warup drums are played on a march by all the region’s
dance teams through the streets of Thursday Island.Aunty May Passi from Murray Island watches over a new
generation of dancers keeping culture alive.