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Year 10 · The Arts
Unit: Who We Are, Told by First Nations Artists: Dance, Drama, Music and Screen · Lesson 1 of 5
Protocols First: How to Watch, Listen and Talk About This Work
We are learning the cultural protocols around First Nations arts (Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, cultural warnings, and why culturally owned stories, songs, dances and designs are not ours to reproduce) and how to choose, view and talk about work in dance, drama, music and screen in line with them.
Before you startAbout 70 minutes · what success looks like · notes for the helper
About 70 minutes. It's fine to stop after the Quick Check and come back another day: the lesson opens where you left it, at the Quick Check.
You'll know you've got it when
- I can explain what Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property is and why crediting an artist is not the same as having permission to reproduce a story, song, dance or design
- I can say what a cultural warning asks of a viewer, and how I will speak and write about people who have passed away
- I can complete a protocol checklist for a work chosen with my family from sources the creators or their organisations publish themselves
For the helperhow to sit beside this lesson, and what this step is for
This step: Spark
Start with the question at the top and chat about it. There is no wrong answer here: it gets your learner thinking about what they already know.
- Getting ready
- Somewhere you can both see a screen if you want to look at a company's or artist's own website, and a notebook. A local library is a good companion for this unit, because librarians can often find published plays, recordings and guides, and some know which local organisations publish their own material. All told this lesson is about 70 minutes, a little over one comfortable sitting, so the end of the check is a natural place to stop and come back to the chosen task another day.
- What understanding sounds like
- You might listen for your young person separating three things that are easy to blur: studying a work, crediting its makers, and having permission to reproduce it. A sentence like 'naming the artist doesn't mean the artist's People agreed' is the understanding this lesson is after.
- A likely mix-up, and something that helps
- Two beliefs are common here: that giving credit is enough, and that the respectful thing is to stay away from First Nations work in case of a mistake. One way to meet both is to ask, 'If I name the artist, have the owners said yes?' and then, 'What can we do that is open to everyone, like watching, reading and writing about it?'
- If it comes easily
- For a young person who is ahead, a national protocol guide read together is a good next step: is there a principle the checklist leaves out? Another is to look at how a local Traditional Owner organisation talks about its own stories and name.
- If it's a struggle
- If it is a struggle, one way is to take the checklist one line at a time, using a single work, and talk each line through aloud before anything is written down. The six questions are the lesson; the longer reading can wait. If your young person is Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, they are never being asked to speak for anyone but themselves, and their own family's knowledge of protocol is theirs to share or keep. If the topic brings up something hard and they want to stop, stopping is fine, and the lesson can resume another day.
Step 1 of 6 · Spark
Lesson 1 of 5 · Who We Are, Told by First Nations Artists: Dance, Drama, Music and Screen
The notice before the film
For the helper
Start with the question at the top and chat about it. There is no wrong answer here: it gets your learner thinking about what they already know.
Switch on a documentary, a drama series or a recorded stage show made by or about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and there is a good chance it opens with a notice: viewers are advised that the program may contain images, voices or names of people who have died. That notice is not decoration and it is not a rating for violence. A community asked for it to be there. Hold one question for the whole lesson: what does the existence of that notice tell you about who owns these works, and what is a viewer being asked to do?