AustLit

'This compelling Indigenous Australian story is told through song, linking the 19th Century to the present moment through an unbroken chain of experience. "Blackbird" sings the stories of the women of Megan Sarmardin's family. Their voices call clearly across one hundred years and six generations with just one degree of separation between first white contact near Butcher's Creek on the Atherton Tablelands and Megan's life in Mt Isa where she was born, has grown up and lives today.

At the heart of "Blackbird" is a promise. The marriage of Flora's parents, Ngadjon woman Kitty Clark and Russian émigré Leandro Illin has been the subject of both a book My Dark Brother by Eleanor Govor and an SBS docudrama, Pioneers of Love. "Blackbird" stands on the shoulders of these published documents. The existing research has been a gift to "Blackbird's" creative team. But significantly, these moving and uplifting stories came down to Megan first of all through family, and "Blackbird" explores how these stories challenged and enriched the identity of this extraordinarily talented young indigenous woman.'

Source: www.jute.com.au/ (Sighted 14/07/2010).