Feature: Wintjiri Wiru Brings Dreamtime Story to Life in the Heart of the Desert
“A story passed on for thousands of generations, now passes to you.”
As stars slowly replaced sunrays, and the red glow of Uluru bled into the vast plains of the outback, I sat on a high platform, overlooking the land around me, and listened. I waited for the nightlife to awake and fill the air, but it was silence. The kind of solace you only experience when there is nothing but you and the land. Nestled beneath my blanket, I sipped too-sweet wine and wondered over the hushed excitement of the small group scattered along the platform steps. As if we dared not disturb the pocket of peace we had found out in the desert. As if we knew we were here to listen and immerse ourselves in a culture as old as the land we stood on.
On the lands of the Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara people, Anangu culture has lived and thrived for over 30,000 years. And now, we braced ourselves to be passed an ancestral story of the Mala (rufous hare-wallaby) people, in a way it had never been told before.
Wintjiri Wiru is an experience hosted by Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia and the Anangu Working Group that promises to combine Aṉangu storytelling with a breathtaking light and sound performance, using drone and laser light technology. Every promise was kept when night truly fell, and thousands of drones rose into the sky, marked only by their pinpricks of light.
“We have created this show from our heart,” said Rene Kulitja, a creator with the Anangu Working Group. “We want visitors to know this is our story, to look and listen and feel with us”.
While choreographed drones filled the sky above Uluru, acting out the ancient story of the Mala people, an Elder narrated the tale in the local Pitjantjatjara language. An English translator guided us along the journey as the bush scrub before us was transformed into a raging fire, and light projections bought to life kangaroos, wallabies and hunters.
The light of a thousand drones transfixed us in a centuries old tale as we watched traditional Aboriginal symbols depict the Mala people living at Uluru. The melody of didgeridoos, clapsticks and Bullroarer’s overlapped into a crescendo as the Mala chanted the words of their ceremony (their ‘inma’).
In that moment, we were not resting on the high platform built atop a desert dune, we were locked in trepidation as the Mala were attacked by an evil spirit. We were carried back 30,000 years on rising soundwaves as red drones transformed into the great evil dog, Kurpany. In that moment, each person sitting atop that dune felt the heart of the Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara peoples and knew they had passed on a piece of culture we would carry with us out of their lands, to share with others, as Anangu have done for centuries.
Note: This article was written for a university assessment a few months after my visit to Uluru. While the personal accounts are based on my own experience, quotes are pulled from the official Ayers rock resort website.
