Leo Sayer is still dancing, and art and song in Warlpiri women's ceremony
Description
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners are advised that this program contains the voices of people who have died.
As a post-war kid, Leo Sayer first heard rock & roll on Radio Luxembourg on a radio late at night. His career has taken some major swerves: he was an illustrator, a graphic designer (he worked on album covers for Bob Marley), then a blues harmonica player. Most famously though, he's a singer, songwriter, and showman. He sits down with Andrew Ford after a big run of shows to talk about performing at the age of 77, his enduring love of poetry, and how he's found new audiences through remixes and collaborations with up-and-comers.
Yawulyu: Art and Song in Warlpiri Women’s Ceremony is a new book that examines the dances, songs and body designs of the Warlpiri community in the early 1980s in Willowra, Northern Territory. Andrew speaks to three of the book's co-authors, Helen Napurrurla Morton (a Warlpiri teacher and translator), Megan Morais (an ethnochoreologist and teacher), and Professor Myfany Turpin (musicologist and linguist), about the role of music in women's ceremonies, and how documenting it is helping to pass it along.
United States
