The Wilding Ballad
Retold with Margot Edwards, Danielle Caruana, Sari Ellen Bennett, Tilly Kelleher, Bec Schofield | Copyright 2020
Category: The Wilding
Deadwater Chant
Deadwater Chant
by Margot Edwards | Copyright 2001
13mins 36secs
Edited excerpts from two-act play The Deadwater Chant by Margot Edwards with Wadandi elder Vilma Webb
Produced by Arts Margaret River
Co-Directed by Phil Thomson, Kelton Pell and Margot Edwards
Musical Director Guirec Martin
Production/Design by Alan Surgener
This project was supported by Australia Council for the Arts, Regional Arts Fund WA and Arts Margaret River
The Wilding (Noongar Version)
The Wilding – Noongar Version
Retold by Dr Lynette Narkle and Melodie Reynolds-Diarra
by Margot Edwards | Copyright 2020
Noongar version / response to the original tale of The Wilding – women’s power as healers and nurturers; sisters standing strong together in the face of domineering and threatening male / father; refusing to accept the inter-generational story of acceptance of domestic violence and rising together instead to say “no more”.
Magic realism gives it the edge of old tale retold – though originally drawn from threads of ideas about women’s strength, shared at a large gathering at International Women’s Day in Wooditjup / Margaret River in Western Australia.
The third voice of bush soundscape throughout, empowers emotional connection and evokes the vital role of boodja ‘mother country’ in Noongar life, even amidst the tyranny of domestic violence, sexism and misogyny. Here is reconnection with feminine power, drawn from pure connection to country and the rising strength of women’s story returning to the call.
The Wilding (Original)
The Wilding – Original
by Margot Edwards | Copyright 2018
Narrated by Fiona Press
12mins 44secs
Original tale in magic realism genre, exploring collective feminine empowerment in the face of masculine domination; Old Witch Mother, Hearth Sister, The Wild One – archetypes weaving a powerful web to paralyse and dissolve the dominating masculine Demon.
As wandering ‘story gatherer’ at an annual International Women’s Day event at Fair Harvest in Margaret River, I scribed women’s individual impulse responses to authentic aspects/issues affecting womanhood. I then wove these ‘threads’ into a story/myth for performance-based telling – concepts of sisterhood, the complexity of sexual and survival relationships; using metaphors in Nature; reflecting anger at domestic violence, harassment, manipulation, denigration.
With women now standing collectively against the tyranny of sexism and misogyny, the theme of reconnection with feminine power drawn from both wildness and nurture, of self and Nature, resilience, resistance, held space by mothers and daughters, corresponds on a societal level with rising feminine global / extinction rebellion movements.
Click here to read the full transcript.
Link to purchase & download the audio file coming soon.
Margot Edwards 