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Double Native
Growing up ‘on country’ on the west coast of Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula in the 1970s and ’80s, Fiona Wirrer-George Oochunyung had an idyllic traditional life. At the age of 16, she decided to pursue her dream of performing and moved to Sydney to attend the NAISDA Dance College. There she studied with the legendary Page brothers before they founded Bangarra Dance Theatre and met her future husband and father of her three daughters.
But the missing piece of her life was her father. As a young woman, she finds her father and carves out a fragile relationship with him. This inspires her to better understand her Austrian ancestry and how it meshes with her Indigenous identity.
Fiona Wirrer-George Oochunyung is the model of a modern woman: mother and professional; performer and creator; teacher and student, urban dweller and remote community inhabitant. As such she shares the joys and challenges that come with growing up in a divided community and carving out a career as a solo parent.
Double Native is a powerful and candid memoir that offers a rare insight into the burgeoning years of the contemporary Indigenous dance movement and what it means to straddle two cultures.
But the missing piece of her life was her father. As a young woman, she finds her father and carves out a fragile relationship with him. This inspires her to better understand her Austrian ancestry and how it meshes with her Indigenous identity.
Fiona Wirrer-George Oochunyung is the model of a modern woman: mother and professional; performer and creator; teacher and student, urban dweller and remote community inhabitant. As such she shares the joys and challenges that come with growing up in a divided community and carving out a career as a solo parent.
Double Native is a powerful and candid memoir that offers a rare insight into the burgeoning years of the contemporary Indigenous dance movement and what it means to straddle two cultures.
304 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2012
25 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 16, 2021
I don't read a lot of memoir but every now and then one catches my eye. Double Native did - literally - when I was wandering around library looking for something else. I'm glad I stumbled upon it because it's a great read.
The memoir covers the period from Wirrer-George Oochunyung's early childhood years growing up in Napranum, a small Aboriginal community in Cape York near the north eastern tip of Australia, up until recent times. The author, who is still in her 40s, has achieved a lot: dancer, choreographer, actor, writer, teacher, mother...you could even say she is a bit of an over-achiever!
Wirrer-George Oochunyung has a lovely, flowing writing style that draws you into her story. She takes the reader through the many ups and downs in her life - love, disappointment, ill health, grief and joy - with a clear voice that is both compelling and warm.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which is really just one woman's story. But it's a story you don't hear often enough: a strong, determined Aboriginal woman who has a love of country, culture and life and never gives up. Highly recommended.
The memoir covers the period from Wirrer-George Oochunyung's early childhood years growing up in Napranum, a small Aboriginal community in Cape York near the north eastern tip of Australia, up until recent times. The author, who is still in her 40s, has achieved a lot: dancer, choreographer, actor, writer, teacher, mother...you could even say she is a bit of an over-achiever!
Wirrer-George Oochunyung has a lovely, flowing writing style that draws you into her story. She takes the reader through the many ups and downs in her life - love, disappointment, ill health, grief and joy - with a clear voice that is both compelling and warm.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which is really just one woman's story. But it's a story you don't hear often enough: a strong, determined Aboriginal woman who has a love of country, culture and life and never gives up. Highly recommended.
January 20, 2016
NOT a misery memoir!
http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/06/02/do...
http://anzlitlovers.com/2012/06/02/do...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews