Every Sunday, we gather.
Not for show preparation. Or recording. Just for the singing.
We have done this since 2022. Hiring halls and filling up loungerooms.
We all bring a plate. Someone is always late 😀
Lyric sheets on laps and the kettle going in the background, and at least one moment where the whole room loses it laughing and we have to start the verse again from the top.
This is where the songs live. The stages, the festivals, the cameras: that is just what happens when other people are watching.
Nobody tells you that relearning your language is slow
We take our time with it. We listen, we laugh, we get it wrong, we try again. And we revisit it, cause our colonised tongues wrap around the words and we arent used to hearing our language everyday.
We currently sing in Dhurga, Dharawal and Gathang. Traditional languages of members of our group. But there are many more living languages, and as we get stronger, we keep refining, correcting and deepening our words.Â
When we sing them out loud, we give voice to our old people. Every sound carries the memory of land, sky, water, and the ones who spoke these words long before us. And words our more-than-human kin and Country remember.
Ngadju dana-dha ngul. Duraya mana-dha. Feet in the water. Hands in the river.
All ages, at once
On any given Sunday you will find Aunties, Elders, emerging Elders and younger women in the same circle, learning the same line at the same time. Some of us are teachers, some are artists, some are dancers, some are cultural leaders. In here though, we are all equal. We are a community of women relearning our languages together.
That is the whole point of us. Knowledge moves from the women who carry it to the women learning to carry it, and then out to community. Shared authority. Balance. Respect. No one learns alone here, and no one writes alone here either.
Why we keep coming back
Our choir is not just a collective sound. It is the individual women who make it. Our unique voices, stories and experiences.Â
So we keep showing up on Sundays, with food and tea and lyric sheets and laughter, because that is how the words come home. Every rehearsal strengthens something that was silenced but never lost. Every song is an act of return.
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Music is medicine, and community is what keeps that medicine alive.