Constructed Identity and Social Response:Dance as Cultural Catalyst withinthe Kuku Yalanji of Queensland, Australia

Abstract

This project consists of the creation of a documentary film on the role dance plays in an Aboriginal Kuku Yalanji community in Queensland, Australia. It seeks to understand how dance is used as a means to construct and promote a social identity situated in the particular social and political context of Australian Aboriginal, and more specifically, Kuku Yalanji history. It applies theories prevalent in dance anthropology on a smaller, more privatized dance movement in search of its meaning to those who enact these traditional indigenous dances.