Contemporary Indigenous Australian Theatre: data

This data collection contains an extensive range of ephemera and published materials which document commercial contemporary indigenous theatre. It preserves authoritative information on Indigenous Australian playwrights, plays, performances, performance texts, and theatre companies. Maryrose Casey from Monash University has collected all the items from all over Australia since undertaking research for her thesis in 1998. Some images from the data collection have been published in the thesis published as Creating Frames: contemporary Indigenous theatre 1967-97 by University of Queensland Press in 2004. To date the collection includes 12 programmes, approximately 100 photographs, a number of posters and more than 200 reviews. Selected data from this comprehensive collection will be related to two ARC Discovery Projects: BlakStages: an interactive digitalised archive of Indigenous Australian Theatre Ephemera, commenced in 2008 and Performing Indigenous Sovereignty: Aboriginal Australian commercial performances 1800-1949 commenced in 2010. Access to items in the collection will need to be negotiated on an item by item basis with Maryrose Casey and the indigenous community. Discovery and reuse will enable researchers to examine the dynamics that have and continue to operate between people and social discourses.