Liza-mare Syron

University of NSW, School of English, Media & the Performing Arts, Scientia Associate Professor

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Liza-Mare has family ties to the Biripay people from the Mid North Coast of NSW. A theatre maker and academic, Liza-Mare is currently a Co-Associate Dean Indigenous in the Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture ADA and an Indigenous Scientia Associate Professor in the School of Arts and Media at UNSW. She is widely published in the field of Indigenous performing arts and has recently published a book on the Rehearsal Practices of Indigenous Women Theatre Makers: Australia, Aotearoa, and Turtle Island (Palgrave Macmillan 2021). She is a founding member of Moogahlin Performing Arts, and as a key member of the company’s Co-Artistic Directorate for over ten years has recently been appointed Senior Artistic Associate. Liza-Mare is widely published in the area of Indigenous performing arts practice and has lectured on the subject as the Head of Theatre at the Eora Centre in Sydney 2000-2010, at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts NIDA, and at UNSW.

As a theatre maker, Liza-Mare’s directorial roles include, The Fox and the Freedom Fighters (Performance Space 2014), Broken Glass (Blacktown Arts/Sydney Festival/Moogahlin 2018), The Weekend (Sydney Festival/Moogahlin 2019), Rainbows End (Darlinghurst Theatre /Moogahlin), and Gods Country (NIDA). In the role of producer Liza-Mare has presented Koori Gras a celebration of Black queer performance (Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras/Moogahlin 2017-2020), The Visitors (Sydney Festival/Moogahlin 2020), and manuwi jam ya murong (MCA/Moogahlin 2017). Liza-Mare also works as a dramaturge on various independent projects across the country.
Her qualifications include Doctor of Arts (University of Sydney), Master of Creative Arts Research (University of Wollongong), Master of Adult Education (UTS), and Diploma of Dramatic Art (Victorian College of Arts). Liza-Mare has received the following academic awards from the Australasian Theatre and Performance Studies Association, the 2005 Phillip Parsons Prize for Performance as Research, the 2010 Marlis Thiersch Prize for research excellence in an English-language article, and a 2015 Rob Jordon award citation for a book chapter. Her work history includes, Indigenous Research Lead (Macquarie University), Indigenous Research Fellow (Macquarie University) Senior Aboriginal Arts and Culture Officer (Arts NSW), and Head of Theatre (Eora College of Aboriginal Studies). Liza-Mare has sat on many boards and committees including, Australian Plays Transforms (2021), Australian Plays, The City of Sydney Aboriginal Advisory Committee (2013-2017), Performing Lines (2014-2018), Platform Papers Editorial Board (2018-2019), and NIDA Research and Scholarship Committee (2020).

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Papers by Liza-mare Syron

‘Addressing a Great Silence’: <i>Black Diggers</i> and the Aboriginal Experience of War

New Theatre Quarterly, Jul 9, 2015

In 2014 Indigenous theatre director Wesley Enoch announced in an interview that ‘the aim of Indig... more In 2014 Indigenous theatre director Wesley Enoch announced in an interview that ‘the aim of Indigenous theatre is to write into the public record neglected or forgotten stories’. He also spoke about the aims of a new Australian play, Black Diggers, as ‘honouring and preserving’ these stories. For Enoch, Black Diggers (re)addresses a great silence in Australia’s history, that of the Aboriginal experience of war. Also in 2014, the memorial sculpture Yininmadyemi Thou Didst Let Fall, commissioned by the City of Sydney Council, aimed to place in memoriam the story of forgotten Aboriginal soldiers who served during international conflicts, notably the two world wars. Both Black Diggers and the Yininmadyemi memorial sculpture are counter-hegemonic artefacts and a powerful commentary of a time of pseudo-nationalist memorialization. Both challenge the validity of many of Australia’s socio-political and historical accounts of war, including the frontier wars that took place between Aboriginal people and European settlers. Both unsettle Australia’s fascination with a memorialized past constructed from a culture of silence and forgetfulness. Liza-Mare Syron is a descendant of the Birripi people of the mid-north coast of New South Wales in Australia. An actor, director, dramaturg, and founding member of Moogahlin Performing Arts, a Sydney-based Aboriginal company, she is currently the Indigenous Research Fellow at the Department of Media, Music, Communication, and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University, Sydney. She has published widely on actor training, indigenous theatre practice, inter-cultural performance, and theatre and community development.

Training Indigenous actors in Australia

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, May 4, 2014

For Indigenous students in Australia who aspire to a career in acting there is a diverse range of... more For Indigenous students in Australia who aspire to a career in acting there is a diverse range of formal institutional training opportunities available. Whatever institution they choose to attend, the way in which Indigenous acting students make sense of their training does not depend so much on the specific content or structure of classroom and studio-based learning activities; rather, it is essentially defined by the much larger cultural and pedagogical frameworks within which these learning activities are embedded. This article is based on a postgraduate research project on the diversity of cultural experiences Indigenous students encounter during their training to be an actor. Becoming an Indigenous actor is, the article suggests, more than just mastering the technical aspects of training. It is also about an understanding of the day-to-day negotiations of the social, cultural, and artistic practices and processes involved in making Indigenous theatre. It involves navigating these entangled social and cultural traditions in institutional contexts.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander guidelines for drama/theatre education

Initial reading When planning for teaching and learning, it is important for teachers to engage w... more Initial reading When planning for teaching and learning, it is important for teachers to engage with the following resources to build cultural knowledge and help them develop authentic, meaningful learning experiences for students. Resources for initial reading are included in the Drama 2013 Reference materials www.qsa.qld.edu.au/20325-teaching.html

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The challenges of benevolence: The role of indigenous actors

Journal of Australian Studies, 2005

In the 1960s Oodgeroo wrote a play called The Play That Never Was1, an ironic title considering t... more

Koori Gras: A radical celebration of sparkling defiance.

Australasian Drama Studies, 2022

What is a queer black drag aesthetic? Who are the architects of this work? How do you go about pr... more What is a queer black drag aesthetic? Who are the architects of this work? How do you go about producing or curating an event that celebrates queer black drag culture? These are questions that emerged when, quite by accident independent producer Harley Stumm (Intimate Spectacle) approached me as a then Co-Artistic Director of Moogahlin Performing Arts inviting the company to curate an event for the Near and Now Festival at 107 projects in Redfern. After extensive consultation with members of the Moogahlin artistic leadership, and with various black LGBTQI+ community members it became clear that there was a need for and interest in initiating a queer black arts program in Redfern on Gadigal land, an area that historically has been known as a gathering space for many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from across the country. It was never my intention to view the project as research. However, this special issue has provided the opportunity to reflect on the process of creating and producing a queer black event, and subsequent events, to contribute to the discourse on Indigenous queer performance in Australia, and to document the key creative personnel and performers who contributed to the overall success of the many programs that Koori Gras platformed.

Embodied Knowledge

Rehearsal Practices of Indigenous Women Theatre Makers, 2021

Turangawaewae: A Place to Stand in Contemporary Indigenous performance in Australasia and beyond

In response to the provocation of ‘Tūrangawaewae: A Place to Stand’, the contributions to this is... more In response to the provocation of ‘Tūrangawaewae: A Place to Stand’, the contributions to this issue examine Indigenous performance praxes in relation to concepts of home and traditional grounds, belonging and presence. Tūrangawaewae is a term we have ADS 73 | E ditorial 4 borrowed from Te Ao Māori (the Māori world), which is explained by Te Ahukaramu Charles Royal as ‘places where we feel especially empowered and connected. They are our foundation, our place in the world, our home.’1 Tūrangawaewae draws on the representation of home, place, culture and identity from inside and outside traditional landscapes, as well as connecting with catechisms of ‘standing ground’ or ‘standing up’ which unite Indigenous peoples across oceans and borders. Prioritising the distinct and divergent work and voices of First Peoples in our own region, this Special Issue explores how Indigenous performances in Australasia assert, negotiate, share and challenge distinct places to stand.

Indigenous Performing Arts Training in Australia

Australasian Drama Studies, Oct 1, 2010

Liza-Mare Syron, Theatre coordinator in the Centre for Visual and Performing Arts at Eora College... more Liza-Mare Syron, Theatre coordinator in the Centre for Visual and Performing Arts at Eora College of Aboriginal Studies, Redfern, Sydney speaks about Actor Training being her main field and the research she has done on the subject. Syron also elaborates on the structural nature of Indigenous training schools that she is focusing on.

In the Balance: Indigeneity, Performance, Globalization

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The Way We Make Theatre

Rehearsal Practices of Indigenous Women Theatre Makers, 2021

The final chapter briefly summarises the key findings of the three year rehearsal observation pro... more The final chapter briefly summarises the key findings of the three year rehearsal observation project highlighting some of the common philosophical approaches to making theatre observed across all three Indigenous contexts. Noting that each individual playwright’s own particular epistemologies and ontologies, their practices and processes, were all informed by their specific cultural localities. This chapter also includes a discussion on further study into the role that theatre may play in the revitalisation of native languages. Lastly the author offers a short case study on a transnational transcultural project that developed out of the relationships formed, and the discussions had with research collaborators over the three year study.

The Bennelong Complex': Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Indigenous Theatre and Performance Practice and the Cross-cultural Experience in Australia

Australasian Drama Studies, 2008

Indigenous practice is in continual flux between and within both inter- and intra-cultural contex... more Indigenous practice is in continual flux between and within both inter- and intra-cultural contexts, more than an uncomplicated accord between two cultures, and this requires careful consideration. Given the mix of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students, which creates a cross-cultural context, the need for non-Indigenous interpretative frameworks to the practices of Indigenous students is discussed.

Transnational connections: First Nations conversations through making performance

Australasian Drama Studies, 2018

This paper examines the processes and practices of making theatre in a trans-cultural context bet... more This paper examines the processes and practices of making theatre in a trans-cultural context between artists across nations and interrogates the mediation of meaning through the translation of text (play). The aim of this article is to discuss ways of conceptualizing and analyzing the discursive practices that take place between indigenous theatre makers from different cultures in the practice of cultural arts exchange. This study draws on a three-year international initiative between Aboriginal, Māori and First Nations Canadian theatre makers and discusses the development of a model of exchange called our culture your people, a model that seeks to uncover the possibilities provoked by trans-cultural dialogue. In describing this model and its application I hope to provide insights into the complex process of negotiation, articulation, and translation of difference.

BOOK REVIEW Performing Indigenous Identities on the Contemporary Australian Stage. By Susanne Julia Thurow. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2020.

Theatre Research International, 2021

Engaging with local first nations communities through the performing arts

Australasian Drama Studies, 2018

A major consideration in touring a First Nations performing arts production is how to engage with... more A major consideration in touring a First Nations performing arts production is how to engage with local indigenous communities on whose country someone else's story is being told. Engagement strategies have often failed due to a systemic lack of direct consultation with and participation by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the development of community engagement programmes and activities. Through a case study of the Indigenous Community Engagement initiative implemented by Performing Lines, an Australian producing and touring organisation, the concept of community engagement for touring on country is reimagined as one based on a responsive rather than a prescriptive approach, and on s elf-determined and Indigenous-led frameworks. The case study highlights the cultural responsibilities and challenges of presenting First Nations performance on country, the key considerations around connecting and engaging with local Indigenous communities, and the need to build awa...

Protocols of engagement : 'community cultural development' encounters an urban Aboriginal experience

The complex politics and protocols of cultural exchange in a community-based performance project ... more

Rehearsal Practices of Indigenous Women Theatre Makers: Australia, Aotearoa, and Turtle Island

REVIEW

JANE HARRISON, INDIE-CURIOUS: WHO CAN PLAY ABORIGINAL ROLES? PLATFORM PAPER NO. 30 SYDNEY: CURRENCY HOUSE, 2012, 2012

To those of us who work in the Aboriginal theatre sector, the Platform Paper INDIG- CURIOUS: Who ... more To those of us who work in the Aboriginal theatre sector, the Platform Paper INDIG- CURIOUS: Who Can Play Aboriginal Roles? comes as a welcome relief. Written by multi-award-winning playwright and essayist, Jane Harrison, this is the first Platform Paper by Currency House written by an Aboriginal person on contemporary Indigenous theatre practice. At the core of Harrison's paper are two key questions: can non-Aboriginal actors play Aboriginal roles? Can they do it responsibly. In examining these questions, Harrison reverses the gaze of writing about Aboriginal theatre practices, and instead focuses on the curiosity of non-Aboriginal theatre- makers for including Aboriginal experience in staged productions.

Contemporary indigenous theatre and performance practice in Australia: cultural integrity and historical significance

PERFORMANCE

The Fox and the Freedom Fighters, 2014

Director

BOOK REVIEW

Glen McGillivray, ed. Scrapbooks, Snapshots and Memorabilia: Hidden Archives of Performance, edited by Glen McGillivray (Bern: Peter Lang, 2011), 2014

Editor Glen McGillivray has compiled this collection that features twelve case studies examining ... more Editor Glen McGillivray has compiled this collection that features twelve case studies examining the nature of the archive; and, in particular, the challenges that performance and theatre studies researchers face when they conduct archival research. The AusStage database project was the impetus for this anthology, as many of the authors in Scrapbooks were involved in establishing the online resource designed to help researchers research live performance in Australia. The authors write evocatively of being in ‘[s]ummer’s great room’ (McGillivray, 21), of being ‘captives of the archive’ (Casey, 30), and how in ‘the empty house’ (Card, 129), they search for the ‘accidents of survival’ (Hall, 105) that leak from ‘battered suitcases’ (123).

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‘Addressing a Great Silence’: <i>Black Diggers</i> and the Aboriginal Experience of War

New Theatre Quarterly, Jul 9, 2015

Training Indigenous actors in Australia

Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, May 4, 2014

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander guidelines for drama/theatre education

Download

The challenges of benevolence: The role of indigenous actors

Journal of Australian Studies, 2005

In the 1960s Oodgeroo wrote a play called The Play That Never Was1, an ironic title considering t... more

Koori Gras: A radical celebration of sparkling defiance.

Australasian Drama Studies, 2022

Embodied Knowledge

Rehearsal Practices of Indigenous Women Theatre Makers, 2021

Turangawaewae: A Place to Stand in Contemporary Indigenous performance in Australasia and beyond

Indigenous Performing Arts Training in Australia

Australasian Drama Studies, Oct 1, 2010

In the Balance: Indigeneity, Performance, Globalization

Download

The Way We Make Theatre

Rehearsal Practices of Indigenous Women Theatre Makers, 2021

The Bennelong Complex': Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Indigenous Theatre and Performance Practice and the Cross-cultural Experience in Australia

Australasian Drama Studies, 2008

Transnational connections: First Nations conversations through making performance

Australasian Drama Studies, 2018

BOOK REVIEW Performing Indigenous Identities on the Contemporary Australian Stage. By Susanne Julia Thurow. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2020.

Theatre Research International, 2021

Engaging with local first nations communities through the performing arts

Australasian Drama Studies, 2018

Protocols of engagement : 'community cultural development' encounters an urban Aboriginal experience

The complex politics and protocols of cultural exchange in a community-based performance project ... more

Rehearsal Practices of Indigenous Women Theatre Makers: Australia, Aotearoa, and Turtle Island

REVIEW

JANE HARRISON, INDIE-CURIOUS: WHO CAN PLAY ABORIGINAL ROLES? PLATFORM PAPER NO. 30 SYDNEY: CURRENCY HOUSE, 2012, 2012

Contemporary indigenous theatre and performance practice in Australia: cultural integrity and historical significance

PERFORMANCE

The Fox and the Freedom Fighters, 2014

Director

BOOK REVIEW

Glen McGillivray, ed. Scrapbooks, Snapshots and Memorabilia: Hidden Archives of Performance, edited by Glen McGillivray (Bern: Peter Lang, 2011), 2014

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Functions of dialogue in (television) drama – A case study of Indigenous-authored television narratives

Sage/Language and Literature, 2022

While stylistics has successfully integrated the study of language use in film and television, re... more While stylistics has successfully integrated the study of language use in film and television, relatively little research has tried to systematically classify the functions of television or film dialogue – i.e. to taxonomise its range of potential stylistic functions such as characterisation or the creation of consistency. Most stylistic research has also focussed on traditional US (Hollywood) or European narrative mass media, rather than culturally-diverse or Indigenous-authored film and television. This article aims to make a contribution to both of these under-examined fields by offering a case study of the stylistic functions of Australian Aboriginal English lexis in three successful Indigenous-authored television series. The three series (Redfern Now, Cleverman and Mystery Road) are all important for the television canon and were broadcast in Australia as well as exported internationally. Using an existing corpus with dialogue from these series as repository, this article illustrates the different functions of Australian Aboriginal English lexis in its surrounding text by critically examining multiple dialogue extracts from the three narratives. Quotations from Indigenous screen creatives are interwoven with the analysis where relevant. We argue that such lexis fulfils many functions beyond characterisation and demonstrate the significance of communicating culture and identity in Indigenous-authored drama. The study has implications both for the stylistic analysis of the multiple functions of television/film dialogue and for the study of narratives that feature significant creative involvement by marginalised, subjugated, colonised, or otherwise historically excluded communities – including but not limited to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait islander people(s) in Australia.

Liza-mare Syron

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