Music Theatre Works for Children: Volume 1 - Australia and Its People

By Geoffrey D'Ombrain

The book consists of three parts. The first is the background story providing a detailed context surrounding the writing of the works. It also gives details of methodology and the origins of each work. The second part of the book is made up of the scripts for each of the works and the third section is the scores for all the original music. Despite the subtitle, AUSTRALIA AND ITS PEOPLE, there are shows which have universal appeal, such as, "Mimi and the Kangaroo", successfully performed with children in Minnesota.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Sep 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781504323147

Geoffrey D'Ombrain

Geoffrey d’Ombrain has lived a very long life, turning 90 while completing this book. He has engaged fully in all aspects of the life that he has encountered. Creativity in education and musical performance/composition has been the hallmark of his career. Growing up in the great depression he became conscious of the sharp divides in life. He describes himself as a socialist. He was old enough to experience the horror of World War 2, be it at a distance. Geoffrey is famous for telling stories; but Geoffrey’s stories are about real people and real happenings in life. He has a remarkable memory and eye for detail. More than this research skills honed in the field of education are expertly applied to historical stories so that authenticity is diligently sought. Geoffrey still attends reunions with former students from the course he established in music at Melbourne State College and they never cease to sing its praises. When Geoffrey first went overseas to American 1972, he asked himself what he could be proud of in being an Australian? He had and still has only one answer to this question, the remarkable cultures of our now appropriately called, First Nations’ Australians. Geoffrey is very fortunate. He can still exercise his passion for singing folk songs from around the world and improvise on the flute with virtuosic prowess. Geoffrey’s life has displayed a passion for music, literature, visual arts, theatre and dance.

Book preview

MUSIC THEATRE

WORKS FOR CHILDREN

VOLUME 1 - AUSTRALIA AND ITS PEOPLE

Geoffrey D’Ombrain

85884.png

Copyright © 2021 Geoffrey D’Ombrain.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or

mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the

written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

A Division of Hay House

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.balboapress.com.au

AU TFN: 1 800 844 925 (Toll Free inside Australia)

AU Local: 0283 107 086 ([phone] from outside Australia)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed

since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do

not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of

treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or

indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest

for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself,

which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2306-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-2314-7 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 09/16/2021

CONTENTS

The Background Story

The Mimi and the Kangaroo

A Tale of Two Mountains

How Did Your Family Come to these Shores?

What is an Australian?

For Werribee Bound

Wool to Sell

The New Land

Where Sea Meets Land

The Long Journey

Bound for Bendigo

The Family

Help

Australia 2188

Schooldays 2188

New Hope from Old Gold

Our Town

Country Fayre

Bushrangers

The Big Pow-Wow

The Past and the Present

Appendices Song and Dance Scores, Preamble

Song of the Mimi, Appendix 1

Hunt for the Roo, Appendix 2

Song and Ceremonial Dance, Appendix 3

Song of Reconciliation, Appendix 4

One World, One People, Appendix 5

Came a Ship, Appendix 6

Big Nail Mountain, Appendix 7

Sing a Song of Spices, Appendix 8

Procession of Id al Fitr, Appendix 9

How Did Your Family Come to these Shores?, Appendix 10

From England, Appendix 11

Morris Dance, Appendix 12

Ireland - From Ireland We Came, Appendix 13

Irish Lilt, Appendix 14

Song, For Forty Years (Italy), Appendix 15

Tarantella, Appendix 16

Greek Dance, Appendix 17

In Greece its Hard, Appendix 18

Philippines, The Land We Left, Appendix 19

Tinikling, Appendix 20

Peruvian Processional Dance, Appendix 21

Song, From Mountains Steep (Peruvian Song) , Appendix 22

The Great Round , Appendix 23

Koori Song and Dance, Appendix 24

Irish Lilt, Appendix 25

Italian Song and Dance, Appendix 26

Greek Song and Dance, Appendix 27

Vietnamese Song and Dance, Appendix 28

Maltese Song and Dance, Appendix 29

Werribee Bound, Narration Backing, Appendix 30

Shepherd’s Song, Round up the Sheep, Appendix 31

Song of the Sheep/Dance of the Sheep , Appendix 32

Landing Song, Appendix 33

We are the Shearers, Appendix 34

Song of Werribee, Finale, Appendix 35

Arrival Song 1, Wool to Sell, Appendix 36

Sheep Puppeteers, Mime, Movement and Baa Chorus , Appendix 37

Weaving Song and Dance, Appendix 38

Finale, Wool to Sell, Appendix 39

Arrival Song 2, The New Land, Appendix 40

Build the Wall/Unload the Ship, Appendix 41

Song of the New Settlers, Appendix 42

Spinning Dance, Appendix 43

The Blacksmith’s Forge, Action Song, Appendix 44

Bush Dance, New Land Finale, Appendix 45

Where Sea Meets Land, Appendix 46

Tacking Shanty, Appendix 47

Welcome Song, Appendix 48

Work Song, Appendix 49

Hornpipe, Appendix 50

Vendor’s Song, Appendix 51

Farewell Song and Dance, Appendix 52

Arrival Song 3, The Long Journey, Appendix 53

Cobb & Co Song, Appendix 54

Fell all the Trees, Appendix 55

Bound for Bendigo, Appendix 56

Putting up the Tents, Appendix 57

Panning For Gold, Appendix 58

Chinese Dance, Appendix 59

Here Come the Traps, Appendix 60

I’ve Struck it Rich, Appendix 61

Bush Dance, Appendix 62

The Family, Appendix 63

Just Fifty Years Ago, Appendix 64

Round, Appendix 65

Celebration Dance, Appendix 66

Who Will Help?, Appendix 67

Fire Fighters’ Song & Hose Dance, Appendix 68

Bring the Stretchers, Appendix 69

S.E.S Song and Dance, Appendix 70

Police Song and Action Dance, Appendix 71

Hip, Hip, Hooray!, Appendix 72

Bush Dance, Help, Appendix 73

My Remote Controller, Appendix 74

Switched-on Song, Appendix 75

Finale 2188, Appendix 76

Anthem of the World Youth, Appendix 77

Memory Drill, Appendix 78

Memory Drill Trio, Appendix 79

Computer Learning Session, Appendix 80

We Came with Sheep, Appendix 81

Haymaker’s Jig, Appendix 82

Gold, Gold, Appendix 83 (a)

Gold, Gold, Percussion Section , Appendix 83 (b)

Finale, Back to Talbot, Appendix 84

Our Town, Appendix 85

Firemens’ Round, Appendix 86

Fire, Fire, Appendix 87

Song of the Dust Storm, Appendix 88

Song of the Flood, Appendix 89

Song of the Wind, Appendix 90

Our Town, Finale, Appendix 91

Come to the Fayre, Appendix 92

Metheringham Country Dance, Appendix 93

Finale - Song of the Grain, Appendix 94

Bushranger’s Song, Part 1, Appendix 95

Policeman’s Song, Appendix 96

Bushrangers, Part 2, Appendix 97

Quadrille, Dance Finale, Appendix 98

Bushrangers, Part 3, Appendix 99

The Gathering, Appendix 100

Song of the Dreaming, Appendix 101

We Come from Mother Earth, Appendix 102

Finale, The Big Pow-Wow, Appendix 103

What was it Like?, Appendix 104

The Past - Morning, Appendix 105

The Present - Morning, Appendix 106

Bussing It - The Present, Appendix 107

Bush Dance - Past and Present, Appendix 108

Disco Dance, Appendix 109

Land of the South, Appendix 110

85921.png

THE BACKGROUND STORY

From 1984 to 1999, I created over sixty music theatre works for children. They contained songs, dances and some dialogue, though this was often the result of children’s workshops. Most were commissions from primary schools, though some were specifically related to work with secondary and college students, the latter generally in America. Apart from the work in America, the themes reflected the current curriculum emphasis in the school programs.

Dance and movement played a major part in all the productions. I was fortunate to work for many years with Jenny Abella. She had a passion for dance from classical to modern and traditional. She also excelled as a choreographer. In some programs, where the contact time with students was brief, her choreographed movements were taught to the students. Our general approach, however, was to let the students, with some guidance, work in small groups with the soundtracks to devise suitable movements. This occurred particularly where a narrative was involved, as in the first two works in this volume. We would then have a show time and through discussion select ideas to form the sequences. It also helped us choose which students would play which roles. Jenny would then correlate movements to complete the choreography. Frequently we would have workshops based on particular animal movements and ideas would be aided by all kinds of visual references, where possible the actual animals. This was easy in our Rustic Space Theatre, since we were surrounded by a Wildlife Research Station, Serendip and sometimes had kangaroos in our garden. When traditional or national dance was involved, we generally selected from actual movement menus, e.g. English country dance, Australian bush dance. I was at one time given the task of putting together an Aboriginal dance group for the Melbourne City Council and had a long interest in Australian Aboriginal dance and music, quite indivisible. This interest bore fruit in several productions.

While in America in 1992 Jenny Abella, Sioux Patullo and Ricardo Ferreira (The Pirra Ensemble’s core members) and I took part in a Native American dance workshop in Minneapolis, conducted by the plains Native Americans. That fed some later works. In conclusion we endeavoured, where possible, to utilize as many of the student’s own ideas for the movement work, using group activities and reporting back. The group tasks sometimes were simply to act out or mine aspects of the stories that were unfolding. In all this work involvement of the student’s teachers was most important. It has generally been beyond the scope of this volume to detail the choreography of movement and dance sequences, but some guidelines are included. Hopefully anyone wishing to produce one of these music/theatre works will take heed of the points made in this and the previous paragraph.

This volume is a collection all the works that deal with Australia and its people. The first relates to a dreamtime story from the rich culture of indigenous Australians and the second to an aspect of Australia’s proud multicultural face of over twenty years ago. There are many simple works that tell tales of how different people from various origins have made Australia their home. Unfortunately, what was true at the time some of these works were written is no longer true today (2013).

The world has just so much to learn from the lifestyles of indigenous peoples. This is just so true in Australia. The various aboriginal nations of Australia had a relationship to the land that was essentially spiritual. The people belong to the land and not as we so often see it as - the land belonging to us. There are many beautiful creation stories in Australian Aboriginal culture, and it is remarkable how much similarity they bear to those of Native Americans. A beautiful little book, The Biririk, story told by Gulpilil, Photographs by Neil Kennedy, L&S Publishing (1983), was one of the inspirations behind the first piece in this volume, The Mimi and the Kangaroo. The work was written for St Patrick’s Primary School, Geelong, Victoria (1987) to fit into their study of our Australian Aboriginal culture. The Mimi were dreamtime creator spirits who could move in and out of the rocks with their thin long bodies. They made all things on the earth, but they also taught the people how to hunt the kangaroo and all other skills needed to survive on mother earth. In 1990 this work was work-shopped and performed with grade three black and white American children at Barton Elementary School, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. I mention this because there is a funny story about the spears and throwing sticks (womera) I had made in Northfield for this production. I was in my friend Professor Keith Harrison’s garden and