Local comedy troupe The Bionic Bannock Boys is set to premiere its six-episode series on national television next month on the Aboriginal People's Television Network (APTN).
"It's universal comedy," said Cory Generoux, writer, producer, director and actor for the show.
"It just so happens we're aboriginals doing it. But given our life experiences and our backgrounds the aboriginal part just comes into play naturally."
He's excited about bringing this brand of comedy to the small screen.
It all started a couple years ago when the Bionic Bannock Boys developed a pilot for APTN, which received very good reviews, said Generoux.
"We applied for a series after that and last year we got the green light to shoot a television series," he said.
The comedy troupe -- consisting of Generoux, Keon Francis and Sean Dean -- used their travelling Bionic Bannock Boys stage show as the basis for the comedy series.
"Basically, with the TV show we wanted to build a little world complete with its own characters," said Generoux.
So last year, Generoux, with the assistance of Doug Cuthand, co-produced the six episodes using primarily local talent and locations.
"We were able to transform the Regina Beach campgrounds into the Broken Elbow Reserve, which is a fictitious reserve that we've been using in our live shows for a long time now, whenever we have to say where the Bannock Boys are from," said Generoux. "Broken Elbow Reserve has a chief, a local mechanic. It has a number of businesses the chief runs, of course."
He said each show consists of a series of skits that vary in length from 10 seconds up to its final feature skit which is about six-minutes long.
"Monty Python, that's one of our biggest influences as a group -- that's like our Holy Grail," said Generoux.
He said people can expect to see some of the same eclectic, sporadic and unpredictable comedy present in the group's live performances, which the guys have been performing together for years.
"We're all in our 30s and I can't tell you why we act like boneheads on stage," said Generoux. "It's just fun to do."
However, he said the TV series will be a watered-down version of the boys' on-stage antics because it's made for an all-ages audience.
The Bionic Bannock Boys do most of the characters but did bring in a few other people like Winnipeg comedian Ryan McMahon and Ala Malice from Vancouver.
"To end the season with a bang we brought in Wavell Starr," said Generoux. "We did a pretty 'mockumentary' with him. It's a funny thing. He's basically wrestling Sasquatches and whatnot. We were playing on his whole wrestling personality."
Starr wrestles professionally under the name The First Nation Sensation.
Generoux said creating this television series has been the highlight of his career. He's been in the movie and television industry for 11 years.
He credits the crew for helping to make the experience memorable. Originally, the series was to debut this spring, but APTN pushed the date back to September so that it could reach a broader audience, said Generoux. The Bionic Bannock Boys will kick off APTN's new comedy block on Tuesdays this fall, starting Sept. 7 at 9:30 p.m. He hopes Season 1 will lead to Season 2 and beyond.
People can get a sneak peak at a screening at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Dakota Dunes Casino on the Whitecap Dakota First Nation.
More information on the Bionic Bannock Boys can be found at www.bionicbannockboys .com.
Eco Business
FNUniv's business school hosts Aboriginal Youth Entrepreneurship Camp
REGINA — It was as if CBC's hit television show Dragons' Den had come to the University of Regina.
The School of Business and Public Administration at the First Nations University of Canada were hosting the 2nd annual Aboriginal Youth Entrepreneurship Camp from Aug. 15-20.
As part of the camp, students were tasked with presenting a business plan they created throughout the course of the camp.
Camp organizers invited a panel of five judges, who watched attentively as four groups of aspiring entrepreneurs laid out their business plan at the Lab Building at the university.
Unlike the television show, there was no money involved, and the judges weren't looking to invest anything but their time.
The guest judges were distinguished business people tasked with deciding which groups would win prizes for having the most-innovative and best overall business plan.
"With the camp, we wanted to open the opportunities for the kids to go into business, teach them all the ups and downs of business and the things that you may not learn in the business school," said camp manager Thomas Benjoe.
Over the course of the six-day camp, students learned about marketing, feasibility, advertising and creating a business plan with the available resources.
"It was a lot of information for them to take in," Benjoe said. "For them to only have a week to get an understanding of the things they've learned, while it would take someone months to learn all that."
On Thursday afternoon, the students applied what they learned throughout the course of the camp into a business plan, complete with a 30-second television commercial.
Put simply: "The assignment was to find something that was marketable," said Cody Kullman, one of the 14 students at the camp.
The groups had to present a business plan that would address who their target customers are, who they are in competition with and start-up costs.
"A business plan takes a lot to go through, but we gave them all the resources that are necessary to go on and create a business plan for themselves," said Benjoe.
After the presentation, the groups had to field questions from the judges, who worked for companies such as Farm Credit Canada, Royal Bank of Canada, Enterprise Saskatchewan and SpringBoard West Innovations.
Rebecca BigEagle and her group were trying to wow the judges with their idea of creating a business that focuses on "moccasin-inspired footwear."
BigEagle said the advice she received from the guest entrepreneurs throughout the course of the camp helped her group with developing and marketing their business model.
"They taught us how to take put things in our head and create an idea," she said.
"Taking an idea and making it into an actual business opportunity is really cool," added Kullman.
| Al Jazeera English - 48 - Ramingining The 48 crew meet the keepers of one of the oldest civilisations on earth. english.aljazeera.net/programmes/48/2007/05/200852518354682582.html - 50k - Cached - Similar pages Ramingining | ||||||||
But in the past 20 years Western culture has begun to seep into indigenous communities, as access to the mass media has grown. We spent 48 hours in Ramingining, in the north east corner of Australia's Northern Territory. Home to around 700 people from 23 tribes, speaking 16 different dialects, the community is deeply connected to its spiritual roots and striving to counteract the darker side of modern living.
Spirituality is still the keystone linking Yolngu communities in Arnhem Land. Whilst Yolngu beliefs centre around the relationship between humans and the natural world, many consider themselves Christian – a legacy of early twentieth century missionaries. The root of their religion lies in 'The Dreaming', the beginning of the world when their ancestors rose from the earth to inhabit animals, earth, water and sky. Each tribe believes the spirit of their people is embodied in various totems which can take the form of animal, reptile, bird or plant.
Aside from being taught age-old traditions such as basket weaving, Yolngu children attend the local school - award winning for its accelerated literacy programme - where they learn English often as a seventh or even eighth language.
Health education is high on the priority list, with problems such as heart disease and diabetes still hitting Aboriginal communities far harder than elsewhere in Australia – life expectancy is 17 years lower than among non-indigenous people. Amanda attends the school's Health Day, to find out what is being done to bridge the health gap.
It is difficult to predict what the future holds for this ancient and long-standing way of life, as traditional spirituality begins to mix with the influences of the modern world. Twenty years ago Ramingining had no TVs, few western products and a single phone line to communicate with the rest of the world. But these days young Yolngu men are just as likely to be seen sporting a baseball cap and listening to hip-hop as in traditional tribal dress. Traditional and contemporary indigenous Australian music for '48' Ramingining was sourced from Skinnyfish Music. |
Nyinyikay Dha Wuba
Nancy, along with her family offer visitors an exciting opportunity to gain a hands-on traditional Indigenous cultural experience through activities including: collecting traditional foods, pandanus for weaving, bush medicine, hunting activities with the men and opportunity to learn about indigenous art from exceptional artists Nancy and her daughter Megan. Nancy was born in the bush around Arnhem Bay in 1938. Two of her eight children were born in the bush and the other six at local medical clinics. Nancy's knowledge is based on tens of thousands of years of indigenous culture and practice. Nancy says she enjoys showing visitors to her homeland and helping them to understand the traditional Aboriginal lifestyle and culture. It is an exciting time for tourism enterprises in the region especially with the MV Orion, one of the top five luxury cruise ships in the world coming onboard.
IN THE LAND OF THE WILD DOGS
When visitors come to Nyinyikay, a small homeland community in East Arnhem Land, they are treated to a day out with Nancy Mutilnga Burarrwanga and her extended family, with the day's events dictated by the season. They are a people living on their traditional country, hunting, gathering bush foods and fishing, just as their ancestors had done for millennia.
If you visit in June, female visitors are likely to join Nancy and her daughter Megan picking pandanus leaves that they will use for weaving baskets. July is a special time when the woolybutt blossoms come out, making the bush honey taste sweeter-- but you have to find it. In October the stingrays are fat, so male visitors will take a spear down to the beach with Nancy's son, in hopes of bringing one back for lunch.
It is spontaneous tourism spent with traditional Indigenous people, offering an insightful glimpse into the world's longest continually surviving culture.
Just ask the tourists off the MV Orion or the True North cruise ships. Operating at the high end of the market, these luxury liners cruise Australia's northern coast, with both adding a stop at Nyinyikay to their itineraries. The Orion stop was particularly successful because on board were the top 20 Indigenous art collectors in Australia, guided by author and Indigenous art expert, Howard Morphy. The family did not even discuss the visit until the night before, then throwing around ideas on how best to entertain their impending visitors. Bring out the art, make a few baskets and shell necklaces with the ladies, walk the beach, spear a stingray, boil up some turtle eggs, do a lot of talking.
The Orion appeared, as planned, on the horizon, with the visitors racing towards the community in inflatable speedboats. Arriving on shore, the visitors were immediately treated like family members. They later said it was an experience like this was the reason they had taken the cruise.
"People want a real experience with Indigenous people on country that's not staged," says Department of Regional Development Project Officer, Stuart MacLean. "You're on a homeland eating bush foods. It's all totally spontaneous."
By the day's end the visitors spent over $30,000 on Nyinyikay art, including bark paintings, woven baskets, sculptures, spears, and shell necklaces and bracelets. They auctioned one painting for $12,000, a philanthropic gesture aimed at supporting the community business enterprise.
The hostess for any visit to Nyinyikay is Megan Balatj Ganambarr, Nancy Mutilnga Burrawanga's daughter. The softly spoken hostess tells the story of the dreamtime dingoes that created this spectacular landform on the very top of Australia. She gives each dingo a different character voice in the story passed down from generation to generation-- hence the paw prints on the welcome sign at the airstrip.
She loves to tell the story of how her late father, Mowarra Ganambarr, built this and two other homelands along the wild East Arnhem Land coast. He is remembered fondly as a man whose life revolved around family, culture and tradition. During World War II Mowarra Ganambarr served as a member of the Northern Territory Special Unit, patrolling the beaches of East Arnhem Land for Japanese intruders.
He said that he did that so his Yolgnu people and Balandas (non-Yolgnu) could live together in peace. He fathered 35 children and over 200 grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Mowarra's children were brought up in the bush. His daughters recall their father announcing, when they ran out of tea and sugar, their only non-bush staples, that he had decided to walk to the new town of Nhulunbuy--three days journey from Nyinyikay over rough country.
They remember him hunting along the way with his shovel-nose spear, providing meat for the family. He was honoured with an Order of Australia medal in 2000 at 83 years of age, just a few years before his death. Mowarra raised his family on the edge of the sea that brought the first foreigners to Australia.
Before the Europeans were the Macassans from the island of Sulawesi in today's Indonesia. Fishing for trepang along this coast, they had a camp just around the headland from Nyinyikay. It was from there that they came and kidnapped Megan's Aboriginal grandmother, taking her back to Sulawesi, where she had eight children. Megan tells the story about how her son Tony journeyed to Sulawesi and visited his Indonesian family. Today only a handful of Ganambarrs reside at Nyinyikay, and it is Nancy's dream that her family returns to their homeland, far from the social problems associated with northern towns and communities.
But to do that an economic base is required, and it is hoped that tourism will supply that. When the family decided that tourism was the avenue they wanted to pursue, they turned to Stuart MacLean of the East Arnhem Department of Regional Development, Primary Industry, Fisheries and Resources.
It is MacLean's job to help Indigenous people set up business ventures, in this case introducing Nyinyikay to the market. It was he who knocked on Orion's door in Sydney and True North's in Broome, which led to their visits.
"Because Megan and Nancy are really patient, we've been able to target the high-end niche market," explains MacLean. "There are people out there who are really interested in Indigenous art and spending time with the artists on country, and will pay top money to do it." Already all proceeds from anchorage fees from the cruise ships have been placed in a family trust to be used for infrastructure upgrades at Nyinyikay. Megan's son Marcus, a teacher at nearby Galiwin'ku community on Elcho Island, acts as host when cruise ships make a visit. It is his grandmother's dream that he one day will set up a school here at Nyinyikay. Then all the Ganambarrs can return to the land of the wild dogs.
For further information
Contact : East Arnhem Tourism Hub
Phone : 8987 3433
http://www.yolngutourism.com/index.html
Womens Programs
Description: These programs have been specially designed for groups of women travellers who wish to spend time with Yolngu women and learn aspects of Yolngu culture only available to women.
| Program name | Duration | Provider | Features | Cost/Person | |
| 1 | Gay’wu Womens Program | 2nights/2 days | Bawaka Cultural Experiences |
Cultural experience including healing and women’s knowledge | $1000.00 |
| 2 | Mapuru Weaving Workshop | 5 days | Arnhem Weavers | Opportunity to learn about all stages of fibre making and weaving | Enquire |
Mens Programs
Description: These programs have been specifically designed for groups of men who want to spend time learning Yolngu ways of life in remote areas of Australia. They offer opportunities for understanding men’s role in looking after country as well as aspects of daily life such as the influence of seasons on fishing and hunting.
| Program name | Duration | Provider | Features | Cost/Person | |
| 1 | Dirramu’wu Mens Program | 2 nights/3 days | Bawaka Cultural Experiences |
Experience for men and boys in Yolngu life and traditions | $945.00 |
| 2 | Mapuru Men’s Program | 5 days | Arnhem Weavers | Opportunity to learn about Yolngu men’s life on a remote homeland | Enquire |
Special interest programs
Description: These programs focus on special interests. Different special interest programs are being developed and may be offered on a once only basis.
| Program name | Duration | Provider | Features | Cost/Person | |
| 1 | Yidaki : Meet the Master | 2 hours | Rripangu Yidaki | Opportunity to meet the Yidaki Master | Enquire |
| 2 | Introduction to Yidaki | 1 day | Rripangu Yidaki | Learn the basics about Yidaki | $305.00 |
| 3 | Learn from the Master | 2-3 days | Rripangu Yidaki | Opportunity to learn about Yidaki in a small group | $315.00/day |
| 4 | Yidaki Masterclass | 5 days | Rripangu Yidaki | Opportunity to make and learn about Yidaki in a Masterclass format | $2550.00 |
| 5 | Mapuru Weaving Workshop | 5 days | Arnhem Weavers | Opportunity to learn about all stages of fibre making and weaving | Enquire |
| 6 | ‘Across the Top’ Macassan Voyage | 9 days | Yolngu Tourism Hub | Boat voyage across the northern coast of Arnhem Land | $4080.00 |
Educational Programs
Description: These programs are specially designed for people to learn skills or knowledge from Yolngu teachers. Yolngu have very strong educational philosophies, such as Two-way learning, and these are at the heart of all of these programs. Programs can be customised for secondary and tertiary education groups and special subject areas. There are also programs specially designed for cross-cultural awareness and education.
| Program name | Duration | Provider | Features | Cost/Person | |
| 1 | Wangany Dhukarr Program | 1 night/2 days | Bawaka Cultural Experiences | Cross-cultural awareness group programs up to 10 people only | $735.00 |
| 2 | Dirramu’wu Mens Program | 2 nights/3 days | Bawaka Cultural Experiences |
Experience for men and boys in Yolngu life and traditions | $945.00 |
Festivals and events
Description: Special event programs are a great way to get an introduction into Yolngu culture. Yolngu often attend these programs in large numbers and they are an opportunity both for Yolngu and visitors to interact in a fun environment where many different activities are included.
| Program name | Duration | Provider | Features | Cost/Person | |
| 1 | Garma Festival | 5 days | Yothu Yindi Foundation | Major regional festival attended by thousands of people | Enquire |
| 2 | Gattjirrk Milingimbi Cultural Festival | 3 days | Milingimbi Community Education Centre | Small regional festival on an island on northern coast of Arnhem Land | Enquire |
| 3 | Gove Peninsula Festival | 1 day | Nhulunbuy Body Corporate | Small local festival including aspects of Yolngu culture | Enquire |
http://merricreek.com/tvw/yolngu-tourism/
The Yolngu Tourism project has involved the negotiation and production of a range of marketing and promotion materials for a range of grass roots Yolngu businesses being established in East Arnhemland. The work involved initial consulting with the business and organising and developing content. The project also includes the development of websites The businesses are Bawka Cultural Experiences, Rripangu Yidaki and Nyinyikay cultural tours.
