Two Gosnells locals, Rickeeta Walley and Isaiah Walley-Stack, recently joined a group of five Western Australian performers from the Indigenous Arts Foundation on a two-week tour of Croatia, showcasing their culture through a performance titled ‘Kaya Croatia.’
Displaying their culture through traditional dance, they performed at the 3rd International Folklore Festival Split, marking Australia’s debut at the event and the first time Noongar culture has been promoted in Croatia.
Reflecting on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Isaiah Walley-Stack said it was a surreal experience and is incredibly proud to have represented Australia overseas.
“In the capital, Zagreb, they displayed the Australian and Aboriginal flags on the main city’s water feature. It was the first time they had ever put a different country’s flag up in the main city. That’s when it really hit me and registered that, oh wow, we’re actually representing more than just ourselves here,” he said.
“It was a huge honour to represent our country and our people.”
In addition to Rickeeta and Isaiah, the group also featured Derek Nannup, Robyn Smith Walley, and Rodney Garlett, who performed in the city of Split and the nation’s capital, Zagreb, bringing Noongar culture to the international stage.
Isaiah said he was pleasantly surprised by the warm reception from fellow Aussie travellers they encountered in Croatia.
“The Australians that we ran into in Europe were just so loving and appreciative of what we were doing,” he said.
“That was cool to see because you don’t really get that over here when you’re performing because many people just kind of see it as, like, the tick of the box thing of a welcome to country.”
During their tour, the group discovered that Aboriginal culture was relatively unknown in Croatia, and they were often being liked to a now infamous breakdancer.
“Obviously, just off the back of the Olympics, whenever we said Australia, they would just associate us with Raygun,” he said.
“Then we had to kind of be like, ‘Oh, well, we’re a little bit better of a dancer than Raygun’.”
Phil Walleystack, CEO of the Indigenous Arts Foundation, hopes the tour will inspire more young Aboriginal people to showcase their culture on a global stage.
“It is so important for young Aboriginal people to travel overseas to perform because they get to experience the true value of our culture by people who have never seen it before, rather than those who might take it for granted,” he said.
“It was an honour and a privilege to be able to promote our Noongar culture on a world stage like that.”
With over 160,000 Croatian descendants living in Australia, according to the 2021 ABS Census, Isaiah believes Indigenous Australians and Croatians have more in common than people might think.
“Croatians are very traditional and cultural, and their cultures are a very big part of their traditions and their customs,” he said.
“So for us to build those similarities and point those things out to the Croatian people like we instantly built rapport with them because of it.”
