Dance of Dispossession

SATB exploration on what words indigenous people heard?

SATB a capella choir or vocal quartet

Text: John Kinsella, adapted by Becky Llewellyn

Dance of Dispossession was inspired by listening to poet John Kinsella read at the Adelaide Writer’s Festival where he gave Becky permission to use his strong poem, ‘Dispossession’. The music embodies her imagined meanings of his words: Kinsella’s ‘protection’ becomes Becky’s ‘protect/shun’. Imagine how the people experiencing colonial settlement must have heard such words when often the actions were so very different.

Becky uses an Elizabethan dance form, all artifice, playful and light, masking very dark subject matter and pain of dispossession inflicted.

Written in 2001, this 5-minute piece is suitable for advanced a capella ensembles. It was commissioned by Syntony for its 2002 concert season.