Mungangga Gurlagula brings Mark Atkins and Errki Veltheim on storytelling tour of Great Southern, South West

A fresh take on traditional storytelling brings long-time collaborators Mark Atkins and Errki Veltheim to southern WA this month for a regional tour exploring themes and dreams of the night. Mungangga Gurlagula (Sitting around the fire) draws on Albany-born Irish-Australian Atkins’ Yamatji heritage and didgeridoo prowess with Finnish-Australian violinist-violist Veltheim’s classical composition and performance expertise for “the sound track to a movie”. “To cut a long story short, I got talking to Erki about some stories, things that I’d like to do,” Atkins says. “Things that have happened over the years working with different genres of music and musicians and people, and he thought that was a great idea.” The duo had toured as part of The Narli Ensemble with Tura Kimberley last decade, but this would be a much closer collaboration. “It’s a journey, if you like,” Atkins says. “All the stories are based around the land, the people and my experiences and that. “You hear different styles of didge being played, that I play, which fit into different pieces.” Veltheim describes Atkins as a “legend of the digeridoo” who has played with Philip Glass and Led Zeppelin, among a host of international luminaries. “For me it was a surprise to find out what an amazing storyteller he is as well, and what a gift he has for lyricism in text and in spoken word,” Veltheim says. “I was totally blown away when I heard Mark’s spoken word on some of these Tura tours, and I was overjoyed that he was up for working those into a longer show that would combine these beautiful stories with instrumental playing and his virtuosic didgeridoo.” Veltheim drew up a “creme de la crème” of classical musicians, experimenters and improvisers to accompany the presentation, including recorder maven Genevieve Lacey, who will tour with Veltheim and Australian Chamber Orchestra next year. “Genevieve is a bona fide soloist in the classical world but also an amazing improviser and similarly Scott Tinkler is one of Australia’s leading jazz soloists,” Veltheim says. “My career has itself traversed all the way from experimental music to playing with jazz musicians and with big classical orchestras, so it’s kind of a nice way for us to think of a completely new direction that this show would take. “A big part of it is the input of those musicians, all of whom are great improvisers, and then this concept of a film without visuals. “Mark’s stories are very vivid, these are all night-time stories, a very nocturnal show, they’re stories of dreams, and sometimes nightmares, ancestral figures, mythical Aboriginal creatures of the night. “So we journey through Australia and his dreams at different places in Australia.” The tour starts on Atkin’s home turf of Albany and Denmark, moving on to Margaret River, Bunbury and Yallingup in the South West. “Albany was where I started, nearly 60 years ago,” Atkins says. “I started my music career there so I’m born and bred, and that’s where my journey started, as a musician and growing up there as well. “And then in the ’60s and ’70s, touring round Australia with rock’n’roll bands, I went on to travel the world with all sorts of people. “But I’m thinking, since I grew up there and started my journey there, coming back with a new show nobody’s heard me see or do, this is the first taste of this show. I figured we’d do it in Albany where I started.” The show opens in the swamps of the Great Southern, with frog calls and other natural effects to summon Atkin’s early experiences and travels around Australia. “There’s also this metaphysical story as well, of a spiritual journey,” Veltheim says. “Of being flung far away from home and returning, so in some ways this is where art and real life imitate each other in coming back to Albany, where I’ve never been, by the way, so Mark’s going to show me the sights and the sounds.” The supporting musicians, including Lacey, Tinkler, Vanessa Tomlinson, Stephen Magnusson and Anthony Pateras, were due to join Atkins and Veltheim at Ukaria, in South Australia, to develop the show, but COVID intervened. Their contributions were instead recorded, throwing the focus of the show much more on Atkins, with a modular approach in playback to make the music responsive to live action on stage. “So it’s going to be different every night,” Veltheim says. “I spacialise it around the whole auditorium, and of course the way I play back means I can respond to what Mark’s doing.” Individual musicians represent characters in the stories, and the fact they are recorded brings audience imagination into play in their visualisation of the action. “That’s what I love about it,” Atkins says. “The whole thing where you leave that to their imagination.” Perth-based Tura New Music, promoter of The Narli Ensemble and of last year’s The Journey Down which also featured Atkins, commissioned Mungangga Gurlagula to tour from November 22 to December 1. “The celebration of the life and work of one of this country’s finest artists is a unique opportunity to experience the crossover of many worlds,” Tura artistic director Tos Mahoney says. “It’s powerful, engaging and informative.” www.tura.com.au.