Banj ba walert: water and possum

Produced by Stacie Nicholson-Piper, this immersive story is presented to honour Wurundjeri Elder Aunty Vicki Nicholson-Brown, exploring the Wurundjeri tradition of possum skin drums and the creation of water dance.

There is healing power in renewing another cultural practice that was interrupted, a practice embodied by our ancestors for thousands of generations. We awaken and evolve the making and playing of possum skin drums, through the hands of our Elder, Aunty Vicki, our cultural knowledge keeper and maker of her framed drum over three decades ago.

The importance of our possum drumming runs deep, it is the heartbeat of Country, it is the first sound we hear in our mother's womb, in our grandmother's womb and it is an instrument that brings people together across the globe.

We beat our drums together once again for the first time since pre-contact, and heal with our community, our ancestors, our land, our waterways, our spirit animals, our kin and our kirip through an honouring of a Wurundjeri matriarch and our life force banj, water.