As a result of East Timor’s struggle between 1975 and 1999, its traditional musical culture has either disappeared or remains deeply hidden. This project aims to collect, for archival and other purposes, music, dance and songs of all kinds from all over East Timor. Whilst it has been important to record the old people of East Timor performing traditional music, of particular interest is recording young people who have embraced their culture, this will hopefully encourage other youngsters in East Timor to embrace their traditional culture and be more appealing.

Man in traditional dress playing Babadok Bot

Ros Dunlop, one of Australia’s leading musicians, and Martin Wesley-Smith, one of Australia’s leading composers and a long-time supporter of the East Timor cause, toured and performed in East Timor in 2002. They saw first-hand both the resilience of the East Timorese people and the severity of the situation. It is from this experience that led Ros to develop this project.

Ros Dunlop with Lakado

Assisting Ros are various people and organizations, Martin Wesley-Smith in Australia. In East Timor the students and directors (Luca and Gabi Gansser) of the art school Arte Moris, and the director (Max Stahl) and students at CAMSTL.

[i] the preservation, through recording, transcribing etc and live performance (in Australia, East Timor and elsewhere) of the traditional musical culture of East Timor;
[ii] the establishment of a self-sustaining program that will provide educational and employment opportunities for East Timorese people

Man playing the Cow Horn (Karau Dikur ) in the mountains village of Hatobiliko

With the knowledge gained from her first tour in 2002, her personal experience of running children’s musical classes in Australia, and the experience of working closely with the sisters of the Mary MacKillop Institute of East Timorese Studies, in particular with the Timorese translator Luisa Cunha Marques, Ros has developed a collection of children’s songs that have been translated into Tetum (East Timor’s main indigenous language). They form the beginning of a much larger volume of songs to be used by local music educators. It is imperative to the project that indigenous songs form a large part of this material - hence the need to rediscover and collect these. This would require the knowledge and assistance particularly in language transcription and translation by Timorese, particularly in East Timor but also in Australia.

Women’s traditional Tais playing gong

For the past 5 years Ros has conducted an on-going program in Sydney to collect musical instruments for East Timorese musicians to replace those destroyed in 1999. Through further acquisition of instruments, and contributing to and nurturing the re-establishment of traditional music and culture, our project seeks to give support to a profoundly traumatised and dispossessed group of people. Music and song are accepted methods of assisting in the problems associated with such trauma and in aiding the healing process.

Man playing fui (flute) Illyomar, Lautem

This project is the basis of an on-going self-sustaining program of musical training of Timorese educators. Initial workshops at Arte Moris, Catholic Education Centres, and the Centro Audio-Visual Max Stahl Timor Leste (CAMS Timor Leste) would lead to music workshops for pre-school, infant and early primary school children. CAMS Timor Leste’s premises are ideal for these. It is envisaged that the already thriving theatre department of Arte Moris would utilise the music department for theatrical television, radio and live productions, with some of this carrying on from the children’s television show we hope to produce (TVTL - Television Timor Leste - is keen to have a lot more local content in its programming).For this multifaceted project Tekee Media Inc (has) :

[1] established contacts and facilities to research, record, transcribe and translate, with the assistance and guidance of East Timorese communities in East Timor and Australia, traditional songs of East Timor; this has involve working in collaboration with the Centro Audio-Visual Max Stahl Timor Leste, Arte Moris and local educators in pre-schools and infant schools;(particularly MMIETS) Mary Mckillop

[2] researched and recorded music and dance from 10 of the 13 districts of East Timor. Made good contacts and liaisons with Directors of groups performing traditional music in these 10 districts, made CDS and DVDs so that they can show others in their communities and have their own records. Worked with local educators in infants, pre-school and primary schools; conducted music and instrument-making classes with teachers (many of these have been set up by Sister Aurora of Eskola Konassa and Sister Tess Ward of the Mary MacKillop Institute of East Timorese Studies, a major spin-off will be the eventual establishment of a music centre for local youth, which would entail training local people in the method and delivery of music classes for young children, including instrument-making classes using recycled materials;

[3] archive the material collected; publish it in a book of East Timorese (traditional song and music) and on CD; these publications would be of great value to East Timorese communities in Australia and elsewhere as well as in East Timor itself;

[4] establish music classes for young children (1-6 years old) in East Timor; promote educational children’s music (and a sense of relationship between children from all parts of East Timor) by assisting the production, by local people, of a musical television show for children that features children from across the nation;

[5] perform the material in concerts in Australia, East Timor and elsewhere.

Drummers of Makili (instrument Babadok Bot) on the island of A’tauro

We estimate that c.AUD120,000 will be needed, and are currently seeking donations, sponsorships and other financial support. We have already received support in kind from many sources, including Air North, AusAudio, City of Sydney Council, Digidesign, Flight Centre, Intelliware, the Kangaroo Valley/Remexio Partnership, Leichhardt Municipal Council, the Mary MacKillop Institute of East Timorese Studies, Reeds Australia, and the Sydney Guitar Centre. Australia CouncilHarry Vatiliotus. Department of Education through its special interest group. Mark Rhomberg Our grateful thanks to all.If you wish to assist, in any way, with this project, please contact Ros Dunlop.

Timorese in traditional dress dancing a Tebe Dai

 

Timorese boys in te mountains near Mt Ramelau playing the babadok with
gongs nearby