THE WARDARNJI Festival is back for its 27th year for an “incredible celebration” of Noongar dance and culture at Esplanade Park later this month. 

The Festival, which will feature an “unforgettable evening” of Noongar dance, storytelling, and songs, as well as a plethora of food venues, has been celebrated by the City since 1998.

Festival director Karla Hart says this year’s instalment of Wardarnji will be a “really special” showcase of Indigenous culture to be celebrated “side by side” with the wider community. 

“We are inviting people in and saying, come and be a part of this with us, come and see how beautiful it is, how powerful it is, how strong it is,” Ms Hart said. 

• Wardarnji Festival is back to celebrate Noongar culture. Photo by Jessica Wyld

Celebrate culture

“When you celebrate culture, you keep it alive, you see the importance of it to continue on… whether you’re Indigenous or not, you are a part of a collective that is finding joy in each other, and the joy from having one of the oldest living cultures here. 

“It’s an incredible celebration of dance and culture, and the dancers that attend [range] from the little ones who are there for the first time to the senior dancers that are coming through… to see the look in these kids’ eyes, their strength and their determination and their joy in celebrating their culture.” 

City of Fremantle Aboriginal engagement officer Brendan Moore says the continued pain of the Voice referendum’s result two years ago is no reason to subdue celebration of Aboriginal culture. 

“Post-referendum, there’s been commentary on winding back Aboriginal culture, based on the 60 per cent of people in Australia that voted ‘no’,” Mr Moore said. 

“If you use that rationale, then locally, we had 75 per cent of people voting yes, so we don’t have to listen to people all around the country, we’re a local government and our local government area voted resoundingly in favour. 

“Based on some people’s commentary, that the referendum gave them some sort of mandate, then you’d have to say that Fremantle’s mandate is to continue.” 

Ms Hart says Wardarnji’s longevity has installed it as a “bit of an iconic event in the calendar”, and paid tribute to the City for facilitating the much-loved Festival. 

“To have it in Fremantle where we have so much respect for the [City] with everything they’ve done with name changing, changing the date, and actually really caring… for a long time the mayor used to come down and say his speech in Nyoongar,” she said. 

“Those are all the things that mean a lot to our community [so] we also want to give back to Freo for that love and respect.” 

The Wardarnji Festival will be held on Saturday, November 29, from 4pm, at Esplanade Park in Freo.

by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER