WHO remembers when the prescient indigenous elder Matilda House welcomed then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to the new National Portrait Gallery as the ‘horrible’ Kevin Rudd? ( she meant “honourable”). 

Ngunnawal elder Aunty Aunt Sheay did much the same thing this morning, only more gently, when she welcomed the creative director of the Centenary Robyn Archer as the “corrective director”.

Still, it was all taken in good part, as representatives from both the ACT and Federal governments joined representatives of the Australian Ballet, including all the dancers, in a morning tea celebration at Parliament House for the ballet’s new work “Monument.”
Sheay revealed that she had  a special connection with Parliament House architects, Mitchell Giurgola and Thorpe, having been a domestic leader for them and thus able to see the very earliest plans while doing a domestic duties. They had even given her  the keys so that she could look after the premise in their absence.

Federal member for  Canberra Gai Brotman was next to the podium with yet another revelation – when she was a young teenager, she had studied with the  formidable ballet pioneer Mme Borovansky.

Brotman revealed that the Federal Government had contributed more than $5 million to the Centenary celebrations, with the  idea of celebrating Australian cultural diversity. She said “Monument” had given a ‘national slant’ to the Centenary, referring  the arts policy of her colleague and  “seat buddy,” Simon Crean, a policy “to which he was passionately committed.”

The starstruck Brotman said it was “a privilege to meet so many ballet legends.”

ACT Member for Ginninderra, Chris Bourke, claimed no dance expertise except in what he called “the Ginninderra two-step,” but praised the new dance work for having “an indigenous flavour about it.” In his view the work was the more remarkable because “a monument doesn’t move.”

Not for the first time, Archer described herself as “like the figurehead out the front” of the Centenary ship. To her, one of the main considerations had been what the original architect Giurgola would thin,  but last night he said, “it has  been one of the most exciting moments of my life to see the building move…it’s not just visual, it’s human.”

McAllister who started speaking as  the ballet dancers rushed  off to rehearsal, said that until last night they didn’t know how “Monument”  was going to turn out.

It was left to choreographer Garry Stewart to get the last laugh. The whole project, he said would be “something to tell our grandchildren— if we ever had any.”