2006 Frank Archibald Memorial Lecture
Reclaiming My Aboriginality
presented by Noel Tovey
Noel Tovey
An internationally renowned actor, director, choreographer and author, with more than 50 years as a professional in the performing and visual arts.
After starting out as a dancer and actor in Australia, Noel Tovey left for Europe in 1960 to expand his performance career, often working in stage productions in London's West End. For many years he was a performer, director and choreographer in Europe, South Africa and Australia.
In Noel's recently published memoir Little Black Bastard: A Story of Survival, he tells of his journey from early years with family in Melbourne to being placed with an abusive foster father at Burren Junction, his times as an urban street kid that led to a term in Pentridge Gaol, his determination as a young performer through to professional recognition in Europe, and his later return home to Australia in 1990 as a leading Indigenous theatre director and performer. Noel founded and taught the Performing Arts course for Eora Aboriginal College of Visual and Performing Arts in Redern and with his expertise has been in demand as a key member of many arts organizations including the Australia Council for the Arts.
Through his contributions to the arts in Australia, Noel Tovey has nurtured the talents of many Aboriginal performers, writers and other artists. Two highlights of his theatre career have involved directing an all Indigenous acting cast, for his productions The Aboriginal Protestors, which he staged in Sydney and Germany, and A Midsummer Night's Dream, for the Festival of the Dreaming, in the first of Sydney's Olympic Arts Festivals. Noel was a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Jubilee Award for his writing and direction of The Living Floor Project for Casula Powerhouse. After working with the Flying Fruit Fly Circus to create a role for Skipping on Stars based on the life of Con Colleano, the Aboriginal highwire walker from Lismore, last year (2005) he established The Noel Tovey Fellowship Fund. Each year in association with the Circus and its School, Noel's Fellowship enables financially disadvantaged children to continue their education and be trained in all areas of performing skills.
Since 2003 Noel has been performing his one man play Little Black Bastard, based on his story, in Australia and overseas and Film Victoria are currently funding script development for a feature film to be made about his life.
Venue: Armidale Town Hall
Thursday 6 July @ 7:30pm
image: Dianne Mumbler, Noel Tovey, Vice-Chancellor Alan Pettigrew % Mrs Pettigrew.
