From the Floor
News, updates and information about activities and events held at the Museum’s College St site.
Meeting Delayed Due to Dancers
A discussion can't compete with drums...
There we were, deep into an intense conversation in our meeting room (otherwise known as a spare table) in the web team’s ‘coffice’ (otherwise known as the Museum’s cafe), when a group of men, covered in bright face paint and armed with drums burst into the room.
We weren’t alarmed (this is a Museum after all), but we were suddenly very alert. We knew exactly who they were and got up straight away to follow them into the atrium.
They were Huli Dancers from Papua New Guinea and they'd come to meet the media a few days ahead of their first ever performance in Sydney. On the weekend they’ll be performing at the opening of our ‘Rituals of Seduction: Birds of Paradise’ exhibition (more details about their performances here).
Not only did we get to see them drum, sing and dance, but a little later (we did have that meeting to finish) we saw and heard how a Geru Peng Wig, an elaborate feather headdress, is made from the exotic plumage of different birds of paradise.
Man, if only every meeting could be interrupted by a group of dancers from Papua New Guinea.
1 comment
Huli dance View full size
Yvonne Carrillo-Huffman
© Australian Museum
Huli group View full size
Yvonne Carrillo-Huffman
© Australian Museum
So that's what my staff were doing - claiming they were at a "meeting" while I was hard at work in our real office!